The Minister was greeted on her arrival at SOLEIL at 9:30 am by Mr. Jean Daillant, Director General of SOLEIL, surrounded by many personalities and colleagues. Specifically: Mr. Alain Schuhl, Deputy Director General for Science of CNRS and Mr. Christian Cavata, Director of Cabinet of the General Administrator of CEA, both representatives of SOLEIL's supervisory bodies, as well as Mr. Jacques Maddaluno, Chairman of SOLEIL’s Board, Mr. Eric Jalon, Prefect of Essonne, Mrs Sophie Rigault, Vice-President of the Departmental Council of Essonne, representing the Department, and Mrs. Sophie Campisciano, deputy representing the municipality of St Aubin.
Mrs. Sylvie Retailleau, President of the Paris-Saclay University, was also present and had the opportunity to exchange with the Minister, both on the collaborations between SOLEIL and the Paris-Saclay University, and about the new ranking (13th and first non Anglo-Saxon University) of the Paris-Saclay University in the Shanghai international ranking of universities worldwide in 2021.
The visit began with an overall introduction of SOLEIL by Jean Daillant, presenting the news and current activities as well as SOLEIL’s project of upgrade.
Mrs. Vidal visiting the experimental hall of the synchrotron, surrounded by Mr. Daillant, Director General of SOLEIL and Mr. Susini, Director of Life Sciences of SOLEIL. Behind Mrs. Vidal: Mr. Alain Schuhl, Deputy Director General for Science at CNRS and Mrs. Claire Giry, Director General for Research and Innovation, MESRI.
Then Mrs Vidal discovered the SOLEIL Synchrotron facilities, starting with the SMIS beamline, where the pioneer experiments on the first observation of metallic hydrogen, and on recent analyzes of dust from the Ryugu asteroid, were carried out.
The delegation then visited PROXIMA-1 and PROXIMA-2A, the biocrystallography beamlines involved in several integrative biology projects combining several analytical techniques, such as the AcceS-Ge CoViD-19 project.
Mr. Paul Dumas, co-author of the studies on the metallization of hydrogen, presents to Mrs. Vidal the results obtained on the SMIS beamline (in the background: Mr. Cavata, Director of Cabinet of the General Administrator of CEA, and Mr. Eric Jalon, Prefect of Essonne).
Finally, the project, funded by France Relance program, of the new chilled water production facility, and the FITS project (Federated Information Technology Services for Research Infrastructures, financed by the third Plan d’Investissement d’Avenir -PIA3) were briefly described.
The tour ended at 11:00 a.m.
The SOLEIL management sincerely wishes to thank all the people who contributed in the preparation and the conduct of this visit.