XFEL: Serguei Molodtsov takes over as FoE chairman

European XFEL scientific director Serguei Molodtsov has been appointed chairman of the FELS OF EUROPE (FoE). A pan-European body, FoE is a collaboration of all free electron laser (FEL) and short-pulse facilities in Europe. Setting up this collaboration was an initiative led by the ESFRI projects (EuroFEL) and European XFEL, and the collaboration currently lists 14 facilities in 10 countries as partners. “FELs or free electron lasers are rapidly evolving, novel technologies and the aim of the FoE collaboration is to provide a pan-European platform for the research community to fully exploit the scientific potential of these unique accelerator based light sources,” says Molodtsov.

Molodtsov’s chairmanship is slated for a 2-year term. “I want to focus on coordination of networking activities of the FoE members both within the collaboration and with other large-scale facilities,” he says.  “It is also very important to develop a common approach when it comes to interacting with user communities and the European synchrotron and FEL user organization (ESUO),” he adds.

FoE organizes scientific conferences like Science@FELs and PhotonDiag, and these conferences bring together users from all partner organizations and facilities. “I would like to see these conferences opening up to scientists from related fields such as optical lasers, electron cryo-microscopy, etc.,” says Molodtsov. “Another focus I have is the expansion of the FoE membership and have more countries, also neighboring to Europe, represented in the collaboration.”

Information about FoE: FoE website