December 2023 ESRFnews

10

INSIGHT

How can a new hub be proposed?

Hub proposals should develop

naturally through exchanges between

the user community and the ESRF

management and relevant beamline

scientists. Where it seems that there

is an opportunity for accelerated

research and development in a field of

high societal relevance, the hub can be

proposed by an annual deadline,

on 15 January. Following peer

review, it will be subject to a final

recommendation by the ESRF

scientific advisory committee (SAC).

Who can propose one?

Although hubs must comprise at least

three independent research groups,

a single spokesperson affiliated to

a scientific institution of an ESRF

Member or Associate country must

act as the overall PI to propose the

hub to consolidate the biannual

beamline and beamtime requests and

the associated A forms to file

an annual report and to be a single

point contact for the ESRF



More details on hubs can be found at

esrffrHUB

Jon Cartwright

conditions, which are best addressed

by different synchrotron techniques.

According to its website, “the scope

of the Battery Hub is to guarantee

continuity, flexibility, reactivity,

repeatability and efficiency.”

Of course, not all fields demand

lots of techniques: the HOAHub,

for instance, is exclusively focused on

newly developed hierarchical phase-

contract tomography (HiP-CT)

at the flagship BM18 beamline. By

opening up developments made by its

scientists within the hub, however,

it aims to foster a “synergistic

and interdisciplinary” method of

working that will result in a HiP-CT

“pipeline” – one that will speed

scientists on the way to answering

some of the most important global

biomedical questions

Doesnt sharing data and knowledge

go against the competitive spirit

It may not be the best option for all

fields But in some cases encouraging

the best minds to put their heads

together to push for significant even

groundbreaking progress in their field

can be of great benefit for our society

in general and this is something the

ESRF wants to encourage

Above: Marta Mirolo of the Battery Hub studies composite battery anodes (see News, p8).

What is a hub?

A hub is a new mode of community

access for the ESRF that is

designed to accelerate scientific

progress in fields that are widely

recognised to have urgently needed

applications in society. It requires

a number of independent principal

investigators (PIs) working in such

a field to collaborate – by internally

coordinating beamtime distribution,

and sharing knowledge, technology,

beamline data and results prior to

publication – in the hope of producing

more impactful science, faster.

Has anyone tried this?

Along with the new BAG access modes

(see ESRFnews June 2023, p7), the hub

has been piloted since 2021 by PIs at

the French Alternative Energies and

Atomic Energy Commission (CEA),

the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL)

and the ESRF, in the field of battery

technology. It has been followed in

September this year by the launch

of the Human Organ Atlas Hub

(HOAHub), in which PIs from eight

different institutes, co-funded by

the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, are

aiming to 3D-image entire organs – at

resolutions of less than a micron.

Why is a hub a good idea?

Some fields of challenge-driven

research are suited to extensive

collaboration, and in these fields it can

be inefficient to rely on the acceptance

of many individual standard proposals

by different and independent proposal

review panels. With a guaranteed

allocation of beamtime for a three

year period a hub can distribute

its own beamtime among partners

and can pursue more ambitious

goals involving input from up to six

different beamlines safe from the

possibility that one of the beamtimes

will not be granted undermining

the whole project This is very much

a benefit for the Battery Hub the

performance of batteries is dependent

on a mélange of effects that take place

over a range of spatial and time scales

not to mention different operating

One of the new modes of ESRF community access is the “hub”, designed to accelerate

progress in f ields of high societal importance.

Hubs of activity

E S R F/ S T E F C A N D É