From Periphery to Center

Abstract

In its fifty-year history, the German national research laboratory DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, German Electron Synchrotron) has undergone a gradual transformation from a single-mission particle physics laboratory to a multi-mission research center for accelerator physics, particle physics, and photon science. The last is an umbrella term for research using synchrotron radiation and, in later years, free-electron laser. Synchrotron radiation emerged initially as a peripheral part of the laboratory activities but grew to become a central experimental activity at DESY via a series of changes in the organizational, scientific, and infrastructural setup of the lab, and in its contextual scientific, political, and societal environment. Together with an earlier publication on the issue in this journal,1 this article chronicles the first thirty years in the history of synchrotron radiation at DESY. The focus is on the gradual transformation of DESY’s research program in synchrotron radiation from peripheral and parasitic into mainstream and mission. We provide insights about the crucial renewal of Big Science laboratories toward the end of the twentieth century. This renewal culminated in the close-down of several particle physics machines in the early 2000s and their replacement by facilities dedicated to the study of the structure, properties, and dynamics of matter by the interaction with vacuum ultraviolet and X-ray photons. Therefore, we contribute to better understanding the growth of synchrotron radiation as a laboratory resource, and processes of renewal in Big Science as part of the general history of late-twentieth-century science.

Turning the Ship: The Transformation of DESY, 1993–2009

“…Furthermore, institutional entrepreneurship unfolded in an increasingly supportive academic environment. Whereas, synchrotron radiation research at DESY yielded little resonance among professors at Hamburg University outside the physics department in the 1960s and 1970s, 121 the fascinating perspectives of the European XFEL made all actors became aware that the expansion of multidisciplinary photon science would be severely limited without active support from professors at Hamburg University (and other research organizations on the DESY site, including the Max Planck Society and EMBL outposts), in fields as diverse as materials science, chemistry, and molecular biology. The foundation of the CFEL is important in this regard because it included joint faculty positions that established productive and durable institutional links between DESY and Hamburg University in photon science.…”

“…Here, we chronicle the final seventeen years of DESY's transformation, from 1993 to 2009, building on two previous articles featuring the development of synchrotron radiation research at DESY from 1962 to 1993 and additional literature on the history of DESY. 6 The historical account closes with the recruitment of the first photon scientist as chairman of DESY's Board of Directors, which coincided with the laboratory's fiftieth anniversary. This milestone is interpreted as a marker of the completion of the transformation of DESY from a high energy physics laboratory into a photon science laboratory.…”

Big Science and Research Infrastructures in Europe: History and current trends

“…In this regard, the launch of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), a collaborative nuclear and particle physics laboratory, in the 1950s was Europe's first postwar experience in large-scale cooperation (Hermann et al 1987(Hermann et al , 1990Krige 1996). Other examples of Big Science in Europe, extensively studied by historians and sociologists, are the European Southern Observatory (ESO) (Blaauw 1991;Madsen 2012), the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) (Pestre 1997;Jacrot 2006; D'Ippolito and Rüling 2019; D'Ippolito and Rüling, ch 11 in this volume), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) (Cramer 2017(Cramer , 2020Simoulin 2012) and the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) (Heinze et al 2015a(Heinze et al , 2015b(Heinze et al , 2017. Attention has also been paid to the broader historical, political and macrosociological developments of Big Science in Europe (Krige 2003;Hallonsten 2014Hallonsten , 2016aCramer 2020).…”

Tailoring Leadership to the Phase-Specific Needs of Large Scale Research Infrastructures

“…Other authors have undertaken significant work to examine different facets of research infrastructures and experimental collaborations using such facilities (D'Ippolito and Rüling, 2019); these include the wider economic impact of LSRIs (Autio et al, 1996(Autio et al, , 2004, historic narratives (Hermann et al, 1987a,b;Krige et al, 1997;Hallonsten, 2011;Hoddeson et al, 2008;Heinze et al, 2015b;Riordan et al, 2015;Heinze et al, 2015aHeinze et al, , 2017 and some evaluation exercises (Irvine and Martin, 1984;Martin and Irvine, 1984a,b). Yet, despite the prominence of LSRIs in the public sphere, their consumption of significant public funds, and the well-established policies for managing the construction of such facilities in the US and Europe (ESFRI, 2018;NSF, 2019), the literature lacks a cohesive conceptual framework concerning the management of LSRI construction projects by the host organisation and whether the project influences the host.…”