Research Frontiers 2020 Research Frontiers 2020 130 VIII. SPring-8 Users Community (SPRUC) Prof. A. Kimura Hiroshima University SPRUC Chairman FY2020 The SPring-8 Users Community (SPRUC) is a user society that consists of all users of SPring-8/SACLA. In addition to individuals, representative organizations comprising 26 institutes (principal universities, national/international research institutes, industries, beamline consortiums) participate in SPRUC to discuss further promotion of the utilization of SPring-8 from strategic and perspective viewpoints. Prof. Akio Kimura, Hiroshima University, has been serving as the president of SPRUC since FY2020. As one of the key activities of SPRUC, the SPring-8 Symposium is held annually at the site of one of the representing organizations jointly with RIKEN and JASRI. SPring-8 Symposium 2020 had been scheduled to be held on September 18 and 19 at the International Congress Center EPOCAL TSUKUBA. However, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan was forced to be changed. SPring-8 Symposium 2020 with the theme “Use of SPring-8 in the Post-CORONA era” was held on September 18 with a hybrid style of on-site and online presentations. As indicated by the theme, the major issue of the symposium was to discuss how to promote remote experiments and automation of experimental processes. Demands and supplies concerning future perspectives, including Digital Transformation technology information transportation, were shared between users and facility. The ceremony to present the SPRUC 2020 Young Scientist Award, which was conferred on Dr. Taito Osaka, RIKEN, and Dr. Longjian Xie, University of Bayreuth, was also held. The decision on how to hold SPring-8 Symposium 2021, jointly hosted by SPRUC, RIKEN, JASRI, is to be made on the basis of the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. SPRUC cohosted the third beamline upgrade workshop on March 5–6 with RIKEN and JASRI. The workshop was planned to enrich the information exchange between members of SPRUC and the facility. The workshop was also held as a hybrid style of on-site and online presentations. The workshop focused mainly on mutual consensus about the beamline reorganization of the hard X-ray photoemission, non- resonant inelastic X-ray scattering and nuclear resonant scattering experiments. The facility presented the latest situation of their reorganization, future prospect and related problems, and the members discussed demands and suggestions for beamline upgrades. SPRUC2020 Young Scientist Award Dr. T. Osaka, Dr. L. Xie, and Prof. A. Kimura Research Frontiers 2020 Research Frontiers 2020 131 The fifth-term SPRUC research groups were voluntarily organized in each research field, and the research groups actively conducted research meetings. Each SPRUC research group has been collecting ideas and needs for beamline reorganization and innovative experimental techniques toward SPring-8 II, and has presented opinions and demands obtained through discussion in each fi eld. SPRUC supported the “SPring-8 Summer School” for the enhancement of user’s research competency, and also hosted the “SPring-8 Autumn School” with JASRI for acquiring new users and human resources development. For the Autumn School, the SPRUC research groups contributed to planning of lectures. Although the number of participants was greatly reduced compared with previous years and the Autumn School was postponed to December owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, both schools were successfully held. Finally, SPRUC continues to consider, as part of the SPring-8 utilization committee, how the Science Promotion Board, which was established with the purpose of making practical plans to realize cutting-edge science at SPring-8, should be actuated to promote the creation of new multidisciplinary research fields. IX. Outreach Activities To reach out to new users in unexplored fi elds of application, SPring-8 holds various serialized seminars named “Workshop on Advanced Techniques and Applications at SPring-8”. This year, most of the workshops are being held as video conferences because of COVID-19. Here are some representatives. 54th: Automatic and Remote Measurement in the Protein Beamlines at SPring-8 November 27, 2020 • Video conference 56th: Research for Advanced Devices March 3, 2021 • Video conference 59th: Current Status and Future Prospects of Protein Structural Biology Research at SPring-8 March 23, 2021 • Video conference Also taking advantage of video conferencing, we have been holding a “Seminar on Advanced Techniques and Applications at SPring-8” every Tuesday evening since January 2021. The participants of these seminars number over 500 in total for the first 9 seminars.
home
- JP
- EN