Modern accelerator facilities represent a decisive technology for the future and are vital for the successful approach of the major challenges of our time, particularly in the fields of energy, medicine and information. Today and in the future, the development of cutting-edge accelerators is a driving force for the development of new high-technology fields.

Participants of the ARD initiative kick-off meeting at DESY.

Applications, for example, include cancer therapy, structural biology investigations in drug discovery and development, and the search for new materials in nano life science or in semiconductor technology. Accelerators play an important role in resolving fundamental questions in physics and other fields of natural sciences. This concentrated and strategic technology approach is in line with the mission of the Helmholtz Association.

Accordingly, the Helmholtz Initiative for Accelerator Research & Development (ARD) was established to strengthen future-oriented development in accelerator physics and technology and to substantially secure international competitiveness. Apart from DESY; Forschungszentrum Jülich, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung are on the list of participants.

On 1 July, the Helmholtz Association’s senate decided to include the accelerator research programme as a new theme into the portfolio of the Structure of Matter research field and to fund it for the period from 2011 to 2014 with a total sum of 12.7 million Euros. In October, the senate will decide on an additional increase of two million Euros for the years 2013 and 2014, on recommendation of the senate´s commission. As from 2015, the ARD programme will be transferred into the third period of the Helmholtz Association’s programme-oriented funding.

On 7 June, the ARD initiative kick-off meeting took place at DESY with representatives of the six participating Helmholtz centres. The aim was to coordinate the concrete start into the now beginning R&D programme, carried out in close collaboration with universities and national and international partners. The focus of research includes superconducting technologies, new concepts for particle sources and ring accelerators, femtosecond electron and laser beams, and plasma acceleration with very high gradients.

“Particle accelerators are a key to solve many questions of the future,” says Dr. Reinhard Brinkmann, Director of the Accelerator Division at DESY and spokesman of the ARD initiative. “The complete accelerator excellence of several Helmholtz centres will participate in the ARD initiative with its coordinated research programme.”