DESY, European XFEL and the Israeli National Committee for Synchrotron Radiation intend to cooperate more closely in future in the field of research with accelerator-based photon sources. A one-day workshop of the three institutions on possible collaboration projects took place on 20 June 2019 at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem, which is also home of the Israeli Synchrotron Committee. Nili Cohen, President of the Academy, invited the participants.

The workshop was attended by 18 scientists from DESY, European XFEL, CSSB and CFEL, as well as around 40 researchers from several renowned Israeli institutions such as the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University and Weizmann Institute of Science.

One of the speakers was the Israeli Nobel Prize winner Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute, who, for more than 20 years, was part of a Max Planck research group based at DESY where she studied the structure and function of the ribosome.

At the workshop, DESY and European XFEL presented the new research possibilities with modern and newly emerging light sources in the greater Hamburg area. This also included an outlook on the future projects PETRA IV and FLASH2020+. The Israeli partners presented research being done with synchrotron radiation in their country. The international research project SESAME, of which Israel is a member, was also presented.

"We want to give new impetus to our traditionally close cooperation with Israeli science. PETRA III, FLASH and European XFEL offer many new starting points for joint projects," summarized DESY's Research Director Edgar Weckert, who led the delegation. Yuval Golan, Chair of the Synchrotron Committee of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, also confirmed this: "The research opportunities at the light sources at DESY and at the European XFEL are very attractive for Israeli groups. Israeli research groups from the field of structural biology for example are already regularly doing experiments at PETRA III." For other research areas such as nanosciences and materials sciences, the workshop provided suggestions for new projects. Serguei Molodtsov, scientific director at European XFEL, added: "Our discussions have shown that the world-wide unique capabilities of the free-electron lasers European XFEL and FLASH in the Hamburg area are very attractive for Israeli scientists doing great science in many different fields, but remain as yet untapped opportunities. To further shape collaboration with the European XFEL, we invite all participants of the workshop to visit our facility during our next User Meeting in January 2020."

Israeli scientists have been involved in DESY's particle physics and photon science for a long time and have been researching X-ray light sources for many years, both at DESY and at the ESRF in Grenoble. Israel is also a member of the ESRF.