Company

The construction and operation of the European XFEL has been entrusted to a non-profit limited liability company under German law, the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility GmbH (European XFEL GmbH).

Founding documents

All versions of the European XFEL founding documents as signed on 30 November 2009 in Hamburg.

Organs

The European XFEL GmbH is organized in groups that report to the management board. The company is governed by the European XFEL Council and supported by advisory committees.

The European XFEL Council is the supreme organ of the company. It functions as the shareholders’ assembly and decides on important issues of company policy.

The European XFEL Management Board is composed of the managing directors (“Geschäftsführer”) in the sense of the German law on companies with limited liability (GmbHG), and three scientific directors.

Advisory committees support the European XFEL GmbH in various matters (Scientific Advisory Committee, Machine Advisory Committee).
 

Groups

The basic organizational units of the company are called groups. All company personnel are subdivided in groups, apart from the members of the Management Board and the staff directly attached to them (assistants, secretaries, Controlling, Audit, Safety, and Public Relations). Each group has a leader who reports to one of the directors.

The task of constructing the European XFEL facility is subdivided into sub-tasks called work packages (WP). Most groups can be identified with specific WPs. For each of the WPs that remain in the direct competence of the company, a corresponding group is in charge. The leaders of these groups are also called “Work Package Leaders”. Each work package leader reports to one of the scientific directors.

In addition, there are “general purpose” groups that either support the activities of the entire company (e.g. the administrative groups or the Computing Services Group), or provide technical assistance for various WPs (e.g. Technical Support Services Group incl. Mechanical Workshop, Electronics Workshop etc.).