In a meeting at UNESCO in Paris on 26-27 May, the Council for the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) project unanimously decided to invite CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer to succeed Chris Llewellyn Smith as President of the SESAME Council.
Heuer accepted, saying that he was honoured to take on a project of such importance for science and for the region. The Council agreed that the hand-over will take place after the formal opening of SESAME in late 2016 or the first half of 2017.
SESAME is a unique joint venture based in Jordan that brings together scientists from its members Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey. The facility – a synchrotron light source – will provide an intense source of light from infrared to X-ray wavelengths, allowing researchers from the region to investigate the properties of advanced materials, biological processes and cultural artefacts.
CERN’s contribution to SESAME comes in the form of the EU-funded CESSAMag project, through which CERN is coordinating the production of dipole, quadrupole and sextupole magnets for the SESAME main ring, along with the associated power supplies. These are being produced in SESAME members Cyprus, Israel and Turkey as well as in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, with in-kind support from SESAME members Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. Commissioning is due to begin in the second half of 2016.
Llewellyn Smith was also a Director-General of CERN, from 1994-1997. During his mandate the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was approved for construction (December 1994) and Japan and the US became Observer States. Luciano Maiani succeeded Llewellyn Smith as CERN Director-General in January 1999.