The Alba Synchrotron of the future is already underway: agreement to invest nearly 1 billion euros

BarcelonaThe Alba Synchrotron of the future is now operational. The Generalitat (Catalan Government) and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities signed an agreement this Tuesday to allocate more than 926 million euros over the next thirteen years to convert it into a fourth-generation particle accelerator, which will place the Cerdanyola del Vallès facility among the most advanced research infrastructures in Europe.

This major investment should allow for the modernization of the facility, which inaugurated in 2010. The renovation of the synchrotron will equip the facility with new technology that will further accelerate the electrons traveling through the circular ring. This will generate a pulsed beam of X-rays with even higher brightness, highly polarized and with a broad spectrum, making the high-precision microscopy obtained much sharper and the studies faster. All of this will contribute to expanding the range of scientific and industrial applications in areas such as health, energy transition, and sustainability.

Currently, fourteen experimental lines, called beamlines, are installed around the accelerator, extracting light from the synchrotron. This is where the light is treated and prepared to be incident on the samples to be analyzed. This allows us to observe, for example, very small structures, such as cells, proteins, and organelles, as well as the functions these structures perform in different biological processes. The investment to be made will allow for the creation of new beamlines.

With the updated agreement, the Consortium for the Construction, Equipment, and Operation of the Synchrotron Light Laboratory (CELLS) will be provided with increased funding. Specifically, during the 2025-2038 period, the Generalitat (Catalan Government) is expected to contribute €465 million and the Ministry an additional €461 million. The resources will come from its own transfers, but also from European funds arising from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund programs.

The world's leading scientific division

The President of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), Salvador Illa, has argued that this is a "very important and necessary mobilization of public resources" to keep Catalonia "in the world's scientific league." "Today we are not signing just another agreement. This will be one of the major scientific investments in the history of our country," emphasized the Minister of Science, Universities and Innovation, Diana Morant, who highlighted the Spanish government's commitment to science. "In a time of light and shadow, we chose the light of science and collaboration over the shadow of denialism," she said. Both Isla and Morant also agreed to highlight the role that an infrastructure like the Alba Synchrotron must play in ensuring Europe's technological autonomy.

Inaugurated in 2010, the Alba Synchrotron has established itself as one of the most important synchrotron light sources on the planet. Each year, it supports 8,000 scientists from around the world in more than 400 experiments. A large proportion of the research conducted subsequently finds applications in a wide range of areas, from materials science and nanotechnology to biomedicine and the environment.