A formal collaboration between The University of Manchester and Diamond Light Source was set-up in May 2010. Through this collaboration, The University of Manchester agreed to financially contribute to the Imaging branch line. By Manchester’s substantial contribution, Diamond was able to secure additional funding required to accelerate the branch line’s completion and make this additional facility available to the benefit of the wider user community. Manchester have, in turn, secured themselves regular access to beamtime at Diamond. Once the branch line becomes fully operational, Manchester will benefit from a beamtime allocation at the branch line based on 50% of User beamtime available, although in practice this will mean that Manchester can get 35% user beamtime on the branch line with the remaining 15% to be other beamlines they select at Diamond.
Manchester are establishing their own peer review panel to ensure that the highest quality science is being undertaken to reflect Diamond’s standard academic access.
Their funding has contributed towards both capital, core beamline staff, and to ongoing operational costs over the 7 year term of the collaboration agreement. Diamond owns and has overall responsibility for this branch line and will provide all other funding necessary to ensure the beamline is world leading and maintain the operational status of the beamline.
As a result of the collaboration, The University of Manchester has additionally co-located their new Imaging facility at the Research Complex at Harwell adjacent to the Diamond synchrotron to further strengthen their capabilities for advanced research.
Diamond and Manchester will work together to develop imaging instrumentation that will discover, explore and exploit new science whilst making full use of Diamond’s brightness. Whilst Manchester’s initial interest lies in the field of materials sciences, the collaboration includes applications to other fields ranging from engineering to biology, biomedical research, and geology to name but a few possibilities.