Preliminary Agreement to form the Association

1.  The Association shall be known as ERF

 ( European association of national Research Facilities laboratories )

 2.  Associates are National Laboratories:

  • Offering international open access to facilities and programmes;
  • Carrying out research in the physical, materials and life sciences;
  • Providing a large scientific research infrastructure;
  • Developing and providing innovative experimental technologies and their application.

 3.  The Mission of the ERF

"To promote cooperation between the individual European national research facilities laboratories. The individual organisations remain independent, but via the Association agree to cooperate and initiate joint efforts on agreed initiatives".

 4.  The Associates commit:

  • To coordinate development of forefront facilities for European research;
  • To develop mechanisms and best practice for international provision of  large-scale research facilities;
  • To act as a source of scientific and technical expert opinion for national and European policy-making;
  • To act as a single voice (representing a large constituency for large-scale research facilities)  with decision-makers;
  • To facilitate the availability of resources for large-scale research facilities by cooperation and also through the initiation of specific joint initiatives or consortia.

 5    Functions and Responsibilities of Association

  • To develop and share best practice;
  • To share resources by staff secondment and joint training;
  • To share resources including equipment building which may involve industry;
  • To provide assurance of quality of facilities, equipment and services;
  • To operate education and outreach programmes including exchange of materials;
  • To undertake knowledge transfer and particularly technology transfer to industry;
  • To develop socio-economic modelling and metrics of the effects of large scale facilities and to share experiences and results;
  • To pursue means of providing specific scientific / technical support for new user communities.

 6   Method of Operating

  • The Association will be formed initially by a group of laboratories (see Annex 1) by mutual agreement;
  • The Association will define rules for co-option of further members;
  • The Association will be constituted as a "not-for-profit" organisation registered in an appropriate European country;
  • The Association will have a President. The position will rotate amongst the members with a term of 2 years;
  • The Association will have at least 2 meetings of members per year, Spring and Autumn;
  • The Association will make decisions by consensus;
  • The effectiveness of the Association will be reviewed every two years;
  • The Association may change this Agreement by unanimity. 

  SIGNED

  •  Denis Raoux            Soleil
  •  Kurt Clausen      PSI
  • Carlo Rizzuto          Elettra
  • Aart Kleyn        FOM
  •  Jochen Schneider DESY
  • Wolfgang Sandner  MBI
  • Nils Mårtensson       MAX-lab
  • Michael Steiner HMI
  • Philippe Chomaz    GANIL
  • John Wood  CCLRC
  • Walter Henning GSI
      

ANNEX 1

THE INITIATING INSTITUTES

  • Societe Civile Synchrotron Soleil (FR),
  • Elettra – Societa Sincrotrone Trieste (IT),
  • Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) (DE),
  • MAX-lab (SE),
  • GANIL (FR),
  • PSI -Paul Scherrer Institut (CH),
  • FOM Institute Rijnhuizen (NL),
  • Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short-pulse Spectroscopy (MBI) (DE),
  • Hahn-Meitner-Institut Berlin (HMI) (DE),
  • CCLRC (UK)
  • GSI (DE)