Research Frontiers 2019 Research Frontiers 2019 105 VIII. SPring-8 Users Community (SPRUC) Prof. J. Mizuki Kwansei Gakuin University SPRUC Chairman FY2019 The SPring-8 Users Community (SPRUC) is a user society consisting of all users of SPring-8/SACLA. In addition to individuals, representative organizations from 26 institutes (i.e., principal universities, national/international research institutes, industries, and beamline consortiums) participate in SPRUC to discuss further promotion of the utilization of SPring-8 from strategic and perspective viewpoints. As one of the key activities of SPRUC, the SPring-8 Symposium is held annually at the site of one of the representative organizations jointly with RIKEN and JASRI. SPring-8 Symposium 2019 with the theme "One step for the coming two decades" was held at 50th Anniversary Hall, Okayama University on August 30–31. As indicated by the theme, a major aim of the symposium was to form a consensus on a future plan of SPring-8 through a discussion and share practical ways to realize the plan. The award ceremony of the SPRUC 2019 Young Scientist Award, which was conferred on Dr. Wataru Shihoya, The University of Tokyo, and Dr. Yuya Kubota, JASRI, was also held. SPring-8 Symposium 2020, jointly hosted by SPRUC, RIKEN, JASRI, NIMS, and University of Tsukuba, is scheduled to be held on September 18–19 at International Congress Center EPOCAL TSUKUBA. SPRUC co-hosted the 2nd Beamlines Upgrade Workshop (February 21–22) with RIKEN and JASRI. The workshop was planned to enrich information exchange between members of SPRUC and the facility side. The facility side presented the latest situation of beamline reorganization, future prospect, and relatied problems, and the members discussed their requirements and gave suggestions for the beamline upgrade. SPRUC has continued to promote the activities of SPRUC multidisciplinary research groups in order to develop the use of SPring-8 in new areas that will be important to future science and technology. Owing to the successful termination of the research period of the research group for nanodevice science, the research group for applied science, led by Dr. Masatoshi Takao (program officer) and Dr. Akihiko Fujiwara (project director), is the only remaining multi-disciplinary research group active at the end of the fiscal year. As an activity of the Science Promotion Board, as a subsidiary board in the SPring-8 utilization committee, SPRUC started a survey of research fields that should be promoted to generate new science. On the basis of this activity, the formation of new multidisciplinary research groups is expected. The 4th-term SPRUC research groups were voluntarily organized in each research field, and each research group conducted research meetings actively. At the call for the 5th-term SPRUC research group, SPRUC2019 Young Scientist Award Prof. J. Mizuki, Dr. W. Shihoya, Dr. Y. Kubota, and Prof. M. Oshima Research Frontiers 2019 Research Frontiers 2019 106 the SPring-8 utilization committee requested that the 5th-term SPRUC research group should carry out some activities that contribute to a vision for beamline reorganization, future beamline technology, new application fields, and recruiting new users. SPRUC supported the SPring-8 Summer School to enhance user research competency and also hosted the SPring-8 Autumn School with JASRI to acquire new users and for human resource development. The SPRUC research group contributed to planning the lectures in both schools. Finally, modifications of the SPRUC organization and rules are described. SPRUC established the Science Promotion Board with the purpose of making practical plans toward realizing forthcoming cutting-edge science that SPring-8 should tackle. The rule for recommending councilor candidates was changed to make it possible to recruit a much broad range of candidates. The early election of the next president was introduced, and the next president from April 2020 will be Prof. Akio Kimura from Hiroshima University. The terms describing the valid period of the membership were changed to those with a much clear description. The rule for filling a vacancy for a councilor was established. These changes should contribute to the efficient and powerful operation of SPRUC. IX. Outreach Activities To recruit new users in unexplored fields of application, SPring-8 holds a series of seminars named “Workshop on Advanced Techniques and Applications at SPring-8”. Here are some representatives. 40th: Social science and SPring-8 May 21, 2019 • Campus Innovation Center Tokyo (Tokyo) 41st: Practical use of SPring-8 in Earth science field May 28, 2019 • Makuhari Messe (Chiba) 42nd: Current status and future prospects of protein structural biology research at SPring-8 September 9-10, 2018 • Osaka University (Osaka) 49th: Prospects for the element-selective electric state studies with high sensitive X-ray emission spectroscopy and inelastic X-ray scattering measurement January 9, 2020 • Nagoya University (Aichi) 50th: Future prospect for room temperature superconductivity in hydride research with SPring-8 December 24, 2019 • SPring-8 site (Hyogo) SPring-8 Symposium 2019
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