European Activities
(Europe Technical Committee, December 2006 Edition)
Current European Activities in Superconductivity
In collaboration with ESAS, the Committee developed a Guide to European superconductivity-related activities in science, technology and applications of superconductivity, with some emphasis on the latter two. It provides an up-to date overview of European activities. Planned is its further expansion, to also include announcements, selected news, and/or critical analyses. The database of this Guide is currently limited to the European Union (EU), Norway, Switzerland and also Israel. The Committee had no reliable method to include activities in Russia and the European countries of the former Soviet Union, but would welcome interest from all these to join the database.
In Europe, research and development (R&D) efforts involving super-conductivity concentrate at many universities, major research institutions and fewer large, medium and small companies, most of which are also active in manufacturing. A significant part of R&D activities has been supported in one way or the other by national and European projects, i.e., by taxpayers’ money. Overall, applications have been enjoying more support than fundamentals, large scale applications more than materials and electronics.
Until recently, the European cooperation in the field of superconductivity has been financially supported by the SCENET Network of Excellence (i.e., by the European Community), which expired in July 2006. In the past 10 years, SCENET has been also active in organizing specialty workshops and excellent, well-attended Summer Schools in Superconductivity. ESAS will continue and extend efforts to secure funding for future such schools.
Generally, European activities in applied superconductivity are promoted by ESAS <http://www.esas.org>, which organizes the biannual EUCAS alternating with ASC (Applied Superconductivity Conference, USA). In addition, national conferences and workshops in superconductivity are periodically organized in various countries. One example, is the Workshop “Cryoelectronic Components” (Kryoelektronische Bauelemente) annually organized in Germany and occasionally attended also by Austrian, Dutch and Swiss colleagues. Another example is the ASSE series (Advanced Studies in Superconducting Engineering), in Budapest, last one in 2004 the next one in 2007 or 2008.
The European companies involved in superconductivity have formed a “Consortium of European Companies determined to use Superconductivity”, or CONECTUS <http://www.conectus.org>, which provides a platform for industry to exchange information and to strengthen the basis for commercial applications of superconductivity in Europe. In Germany, a national industrial association “IVSupra” was established in 2006 for the purpose of promoting superconductivity, also on the political arena.
Somewhat special is the situation in the two traditional fields of large scale application, accelerators and fusion. Here, the development is usually driven by large- or medium-size projects funded by national and international agencies or member countries of an international laboratory, as in the case of CERN. The fusion work is a joint European effort in the frame of EURATOM; it is executed through EFDA (European Fusion Development Agreement) in the so called “associated laboratories”, like CEA (France), ENEA (Italy), FZK (Germany), CRPP (Switzerland) and their industrial partners. This organisation will change somewhat with the start of the ITER construction.
A major part of the EFDA management will be transferred to the “ITER European Legal Entity”, which is just now being sited in Barcelona. In the case of accelerators, one of the goals of the recently established network HHH <http://care-hhh.web.cern.ch/care-hhh/> is to support cooperation in the development of superconducting materials and related procedures, standards and databases for the next generation of accelerator magnets during the post-LHC era.
With the expiration of SCENET, ESAS will attempt to expand its role by promoting further the European cooperation, but without providing direct financial support. European cooperation with overseas, be it the US or other countries worldwide is usually occurring on individual basis, except for the very large international projects such as ITER or LHC, which are established via international negotiations on the level of governments. Cooperation on individual basis, beyond informal researcher-to-researcher contacts, is promoted by many bilateral agreements between some European countries and national institutions, usually to provide research opportunities and support scientists and students from many countries.
Some US agencies, such as ONR, for example, have been occasionally providing funding for small cooperative projects between European and US researchers. In recent years, European companies also started to participate in DOE projects, e.g., aiming at power transmission cables and fault current limiters
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