In the last 16 years, the particle accelerator community has been consolidated through EU support from a series of four Integrating Activities: CARE, EuCARD, EuCARD-2 and ARIES.  With the last Horizon2020 calls, the European Commission has reassessed the support for its four super-advanced communities (accelerators, lasers, synchrotron lightsources, detectors), developed and consolidated through Integrating Activities, in order to boost their innovation potential.

After consulting these communities, the EC has launched an Innovation Pilot, a different type of action from the previous Integrating Activities. The Innovation Pilot will be centred on innovation and development of new technologies, in partnership with industry. If successful, this pilot could pave the way for a long-term programme (flagship project) within the new Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

Due to the high level of integration reached by the accelerator community and the quality of the previous Integrating Activities, the EC has selected “Innovation in Accelerator Technologies” as one of the priority domains for the Innovation Pilot call INFRAINNOV-04-2020, expected to be opened in November 2019 with a deadline of 17 March 2020.

The new Accelerator Innovation Pilot Project will be structured around:

  1. Strategies/technological roadmaps in partnership with industry
  2. Initial development of accelerator technologies (low TRL = Technology Readiness Level)
  3. Prototyping for more developed technologies (higher TRL)

As was the case before, the submission of the new project will be coordinated by the TIARA (Test Infrastructure and Accelerator Research Area) Collaboration Council and the ongoing ARIES (Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society) Integrating Activity. With the goal of preparing a coherent and ambition proposal, TIARA and ARIES have launched a bottom-up call for actions to become part of the new project.

Types of actions expected for the bottom-up call:

Type of ActionPartnersExamplesBudget
Strategies/roadmaps to develop designs, technologies or applicationsSmall consortia of institutions, in partnership with industryStrategies for new accelerators and acceleration techniques, for reaching extreme performance, for extending accelerator applications, for improving accelerator components, for improving sustainability of accelerator technologies etc.300,000 EC funding + matching funds
Developments of technologies to develop an idea, component, application with long-term use (TRL 2,3,4)Small number of partners, preferably with industrial participationNew ideas or technologies that need initial validation100,000 EC funding + matching funds
Prototypes of technologies or instrumentation (TRL 4,5,6)Appropriate number of partners with industrial participationAdvanced developments of critical components, resulting from a previous preliminary development or feasibility study500,000 EC funding + matching funds

 

The proposals should be prepared following the guidelines of the letter to the accelerator community and using this template, and sent to accelerator.innovation [@] cern.ch before 31 August 2019.

They will then be evaluated by a committee nominated by the Directors of the institutions members of TIARA.