Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European commissioner: The ELI Beamlines project is successfully proceeding

The 18th October saw a precious visitor, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European commissioner for research, innovation and science, appeare on the construction site at Břežany u Prahy, where a unique laser research centre, ELI Beamlines, is being developed. The representative of the European Commission, attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the Academy of Sciences of the CR, the Government Council for Research, Development and Innovation and other personalities, arrived to check with her own eyes how the work on the project for the user research centre, which is being implemented by the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the CR, continues. The ELI pan-European research centre has the ambition of achieving many new pieces of knowledge applicable in numerous fields, ranging from laser physics, via material sciences through to medicine. “The fact important for us is that the commisioner could see in person that the phasing of the project implementation extending into the next programme period, which we have recently asked the European Committee for, was justified” stated Vlastimil Růžička, the managing director of ELI Beamlines. In addition, Geoghegan-Quinn attended the presentation of the ELI Beamlines project during the TEERA conference in Prague, which is a regular autumn event on the European research organised by the Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the CR.