ISIS and CNR have a very long-standing and successful partnership. In 2024, the two organisations celebrated 40 years of collaboration through events at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK and in Rome, Italy. Within this partnership, some 12 neutron and muon instruments at ISIS have been constructed for the benefit of the UK, Italian and wider research communities.
Under the new agreement, signed in Rome on 18 February 2025, a significant upgrade to the Tosca instrument at ISIS will be undertaken. Tosca enables the study of catalysts, hydrogen storage materials and other advanced materials for a wide variety of applications. The original Tosca instrument was constructed in partnership with CNR; the upgrade will see the instrument able to take data many times faster, opening up new science areas.
Signing the agreement on behalf of STFC, Roger Eccleston, STFC Executive Director Large Scale Facilities, said, “Our partnership with the CNR has been long-lasting and highly beneficial. The developments enabled by our new agreement are the latest in a long history of projects that have brought UK and Italian scientists together to produce excellent science and instrumentation.”
Maria Chiara Carrozza, President of the CNR, commented, “Working together with ISIS ensures Italian scientists have access to neutron and muon instrumentation that is world-class. We are very pleased to be participating in the upgrade of Tosca, which will in turn enable excellent academic and industrial science. We are looking forward to many further years of UK-Italy science partnership.”
Left to right: Steven Wakefield (ISIS Interim Director), Philip King (ISIS Associate Director, Partnerships and Programmes), Roger Eccleston (STFC Executive Director National Labs Large Scale Facilities), Giuseppe Colpani (Director General, CNR), Lorenza Evangelista (Research Support and Grant Office, CNR), Carla Andreani (University of Rome Tor Vergata) and Giuseppe Magnifico (Director a.i., Research Infrastructures Office and Director of the Research Support and Grant Office, CNR).
Further information:
The
ISIS Neutron and Muon Source is a world-leading centre for research in the physical and life sciences. It produces intense beams of neutrons and muons that enable materials to be studied at the atomic and molecular level, offering insights that other techniques cannot. The facility provides researchers with access to a suite of instruments, each optimised for studying different properties of matter. Science at the facility spans a very broad range, from chemistry and catalysis to engineering components; cell membranes to battery materials; drug delivery mechanisms to microelectronics; geological investigations to archaeological studies. ISIS serves a community of several thousand academic and industrial researchers, from the UK and overseas.
The development of Tosca is part of the
ISIS Endeavour Programme, a 10-year project to build four new instruments at ISIS and significantly upgrade five further instruments. Find out more about
the Tosca+ project.
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) is the Italian National Research Council, the largest public research institution in Italy. CNR’s mission is to perform research in its own institutes, to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to promote the internationalisation of the national research system, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, to advise Government and other public bodies, and to contribute to the qualification of human resources.
CNR comprises more than 8000 employees, of whom more than half are researchers and technologists. Some 4000 young researchers are engaged in postgraduate studies and research training at CNR within the organisation’s top-priority areas of interest. A significant contribution also comes from research associates: researchers from universities or private firms who take part in CNR’s research activities.
