Announcing a 10-year vision for Diamond

In October 2015, Andrew Harrison, Chief Executive Officer, and his fellow directors announced the publication of the 10-year vision document for Diamond Light Source. The document maps out how best to strengthen the UK synchrotron’s position as a world leading facility for scientific research and, in doing so, help the country to meet a wide variety of scientific and societal challenges.

Since user operations began at Diamond in 2007 its performance, capability and capacity have improved, in some cases dramatically: the beam current and reliability have risen steadily; the number of operational beamlines now stands at 27, with a further 6 planned for completion by 2018; in the 2014/15 Financial Year there were over 3,500 unique users who made nearly 5,000 on site user visits and more than 2,700 ‘remote’ visits; and over 90 companies paying for access to beamtime. Published outputs are in line with other facilities of this size at this stage of operation, and many of these are of very high impact; during 2014, Diamond ranked in the top 3 facilities in the world for depositing structures in the Protein Data Bank.

The vision was drawn together through a wide-ranging consultation process involving staff from across the science and technical divisions, and external stakeholders including those from academia, industry, other large science facilities, and funding bodies.

The vision is for Diamond to be: a world-leading centre for synchrotron science, particularly in areas of excellence at UK universities, research institutes and in industry; a cornerstone of a world-class site for scientific discovery and innovation at Harwell. This vision has five goals:

• to be a world-leading user facility engaged in synchrotron research and innovation;
• to maximise the scientific, economic and societal impact of Diamond;
• to ensure the long-term sustainability of Diamond as a national facility;
• to engage and inspire the general public through promoting an understanding of and enthusiasm for science;
• to continuously plan for Diamond’s technical and scientific future.

The 10-year vision details Diamond’s impacts and achievements so far, as well as the strategic goals and objectives and how these will be met. You can download the full document in PDF form here.