FLUENCE: Felix Light for the UK: Exploiting Novel Characteristics and Expertise.

The FLUENCE proposal is a response to a request from the EPSRC to develop those aspects of the ARTFUL Statement of Need (SoN) for a mid range facility (MRF) that would facilitate a significant increase in the number of UK scientists having access to the FELIX suite of accelerator driven light sources. The EPSRC contract with FELIX has been renewed from the 1st of January 2017 for five years. However if the UK is to obtain the benefits of its subscription to FELIX it will be important to significantly expand and broaden the user community seeking access to these light sources. This follows from the feed-back provided by the panel assessing the last annual report on the FELIX MRF. The panel commented "However the current UK usage as reported is small and could be expanded" and concluded "There is great potential through this subscription, with UK academics being offered access to world-leading facilities. However greater engagement with the broader UK academic community is needed to ensure that this potential is fully realised." This proposal addresses these concerns and demonstrates that the ARTFUL SoN can be refocused to significantly increase the number of UK scientists using FELIX and ensure that the UK gets the full benefits of the renewed access contract.

The MRF capabilities proposed in ARTFUL and the consequent cost to the EPSRC hinged on existing facility infrastructure maintained by two external bodies, the STFC-funded ALICE facility and the Radboud University FELIX Facility. Since the submission the STFC has withdrawn support for ALICE, in the form of a promised £6M capital upgrade, in order to concentrate the available human and capital resources at Daresbury for the new CLARA X-Ray machine. This proposal will facilitate the transfer of a significant fraction of the community that sought access to ALICE to FELIX and familiarise this community, and new users identified in the ARTFUL proposal, with its capabilities. The programme will also provide support for the experimental programmes of early career scientists and new users of FELIX.

The ARTFUL statement of need lists 116 scientists from 59 departments in 33 UK Universities, Hospitals and Companies seeking to exploit the unique capabilities of the FELIX and ALICE light sources in a diverse research programme. The FLUENCE proposal is supported by a significant fraction of the ARTFUL community and it is expected that the research of 74 scientists from 39 departments in 27 Universities and Companies will benefit from access to FELIX. This is a significant expansion of the current use of FELIX by UK scientists. It is possible that this community can be expanded in the future if it is established that an imaging capability can be established on FELIX. A partial survey of the scientists supporting ARTFUL showed that they have produced over 2440 publications in referred journals in the previous 5 years and currently hold 233 research grants of value £ 358M. ARTFUL received excellent referee reports with all four reports giving the highest grade of 6. There were no negative comments and aspects of the capabilities and potential to support scientific research of both ALICE and FELIX were rated as "unique" and "world leading". The statement of need was the top-rated proposal at the Panel.
The proposal is lead by Prof. Weightman who lead the INSPIRE and ARTFUL proposals and will have an Advisory Board to advise the PI and the EPSRC on the progress of the MRF and on how to bring the potential of the MRF to the attention of the UK scientific community.

The MRF will provide the UK scientific community with world-leading and, in some cases, unique capabilities that will have a major impact on scientific advances over many research fields. It will foster links between members of this diverse community and facilitate the sharing of experimental techniques and the initiation of multidisciplinary collaborations.

Economic and Industrial Impact: The MRF programmes support research priorities in five EPSRC themes: Quantum Technologies, Energy, Engineering, Manufacturing the Future and Physical Sciences and research in all these themes has the potential to make an impact on economic and industrial development through our industrial collaborators. The unique capabilities of the FELIX light sources will foster the development of new scientific instruments through collaborations with industry. UK strength in the emerging THz field will be enhanced by collaborations between Teraview and the Liverpool and Leeds groups in developing instruments for a variety of sectors, the Birmingham group's development of micromachined waveguide technologies and QMC Instruments, which regards access to accelerator driven sources of THz radiation as an ideal test-bed for the characterisation and assessment of its new technologies. Anasys Instruments and the Lancaster group will develop infrared instruments for a wide range of scientific and industrial applications. The Liverpool group's collaborations with ASH Scientific and Applied Photophysics on the development of scientific instruments will also benefit from access to FELIX.

MRF scientists have links with two Quantum Technology Hubs which will foster the commercialisation of quantum technology. The impact of the catalysis, protein dynamics, nanoscale spectroscopy and THz chemistry programmes will benefit from links with the UK Catalysis Hub at Harwell and collaborations with Johnson Matthey.
This proposal will explore with the community seeking access to advanced imaging whether a case can be made to develop an imaging capability on FELIX. It this proves to be feasible it has the potential to make significant impacts on Healthcare Technologies through collaborations between physical scientists and clinicians and the development of THz sensor technology

Professional development and training: The diversity of experimental activities will promote contacts between PhD students and PDRAs from different research groups. This will have a beneficial effect on the experience of younger scientists and give them opportunities to explore future career options.