Lord Sainsbury gave a positive response to the findings of the North West Science Review at a press conference he held at the Daresbury Laboratory today. Both CLRC laboratories Rutherford Appleton in Oxfordshire and Daresbury in Cheshire have been awarded a gold award by RoSPA for their excellent standard of Health and Safety at work. This major investment is a clear demonstration of the Government s commitment to UK science and scientists, a commitment reinforced by the Wellcome Trust and the French Government through their co-funding of the project. The new source will sit alongside the spallation neutron source, ISIS, the Central Laser Facility, and other major scientific facilities, to provide a unique combination of research opportunities on the RAL site. It will be the largest single investment in a scientific research facility in the UK for more than twenty years.
Synchrotrons are the highest power sources of X-rays available in the world today.
Synchrotron light is produced when a beam of electrons is bent by magnets as it travels at very high speed. The light includes many different wavelengths, from the infrared through the visible spectrum to ultraviolet and X-rays. The stream of technological innovations already deriving benefit from the information generated ranges from catalysts and semiconductor materials, through new materials and magnetic storage devices to polymers, enzymes and drugs. These and other areas described below will all benefit from the advanced facility now to be built. This information is important in exploiting the increasing knowledge of the human genome, the development of new medicines, new plastics and textiles, new detergents and new environmentally friendly industrial processes.