XFEL: European XFEL celebrates guest house topping-out ceremony

The construction of the guest house for scientists who want to conduct research at the European XFEL continues to make good progress. Yesterday the European XFEL celebrated its topping-out ceremony on the Schenefeld campus. Due to the corona crisis the celebration was limited to a small circle of participants. European XFEL Managing Director Nicole Elleuche thanked the construction team for their commitment. “This will be a beautiful and harmonious building. Despite the difficult situation at present, we hope that the guest house can be completed as planned in 2021, and that we then will be able to welcome larger number of users on campus again”, Elleuche said.

The guest house will mainly accommodate external users, who usually come to Schenefeld for one week to conduct their experiments. In 2019, European XFEL 900 researchers from 255 institutions in 28 countries had beamtime at the facility. The new guest house will have 58 beds in 55 rooms on four floors and will be operated by the European XFEL. The construction costs amount to about 7 million euro.

Currently the campus and the staff restaurant BeamStop is closed to external guests. After six weeks in reduced operating mode, some of the approximately 500 European XFEL staff members returned to the campus at the beginning of the week to resume operation of the X-ray laser and scientific instruments. Most staff continue to work from home. Regular research operations with international users on campus are not possible at present.