Abu-Ghazaleh: ASREN and TAIEX to support SESAME users in Jordan

Amman - Under the Patronage of H.E. Dr. Khaled Toukan, Director of SESAME and Chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC), and with the Support and funding a of the Technical Assistance and Sponsors Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission (TAIEX),  and in cooperation with the SESAME Jordanian National Committee (SJNC), the Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) and the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME)  successfully conducted a workshop for Jordanian SESAME users in Amman.

The main objective was to promote SESAME and provide valuable opportunities by European Synchrotron Sources to Jordanian users. More than 100 active scientists and researchers from various Jordanian universities and research organizations attended this workshop. Participants showed great interest in utilizing SESAME and highlighted the essentiality of having ASREN and GEANT connectivity as research enabling tools.

The scientific program of the workshop covered topics in Current states of SESAME Synchrotron, SESAME Computational Facilities and Links and Research opportunities and applications using the XAFS/XRF Beamline, IR Beamline and MS Beamline, as well as infrastructure research and capacity building opportunities.

In the opening session, H.E. Dr. Khaled Toukan welcomed the attendees and encouraged them to focus on the workshop sessions pointing out that is a unique opportunity to develop their scientific research activities, to  learn from each other and exchange experience with the European users participating in the workshop.

Dr. Abdul-Halim WRIEKAT, Chairman of the Jordanian National Committees for SESAME introduced the scientific aspects of the workshop, highlighing SESAME Synchrotrons, research opportunities and applications using the beamlines namely: XAFS/XRF, IR and the Material Science (MS).

Mr. Yousef TORMAN, Director of the Pan Arab Research and Education Network (ASREN) raised awareness on the importance and necessity for establishing research and education networks at both national and regional levels to better enable collaboration between researchers and to facilitate resource sharing and access to data repositories and research communities.

Guest speakers and Synchrotron experts from Europe conducted several presentations on the use of beamlines. Jordanian SESAME users presented and discussed the latest technical developments and success stories, emphasizing the importance of computational science and other research domains.