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December 2024 ESRFnews

INNOVAXN

T

HERE may still be debates about how to

pronounce it, but no-one can deny the success of

InnovaXN. Since 2019, when the programme

began as part of the European Commission’s Marie

Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) COFUND

initiative, a total of 38 PhD students have had their

careers kick-started by training at the ESRF and the

neighbouring Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), with

joint supervision from academia and industry. Some

of the students have won awards for their work; many

others have had their research published in high-impact

journals. Meanwhile, the companies involved have

benefited from access to cutting-edge X-ray and neutron

instrumentation, which they believe has given a unique

boost to their research and development.

Mattia Colalongo, who is set to defend his thesis in

the new year, is just one of the students whose world-

view of science has been transformed by the InnovaXN

programme. Previously, he saw industrial research as a

poor relative to that in academia. “I changed my mind

quickly he says The questions we were addressing

were equivalent but we were paying more attention to

the budget and carefully pondering the final outcome

to be as profitable as possible for the company And it

was just as much fun At the ESRF meanwhile he

found the breadth of Xray techniques and science to

be beyond belief The diversity of expertise is so vast

that even casual conversations like those you have when

you go to refill your water bottle can significantly boost

your knowledge

Though Colalongo has been working on lithiumion

batteries he believes the skills he has learned would suit

other areas of materials science from semiconductors

to pharmaceuticals Having experienced both worlds

he believes industry is for him but not all the students

have decided yet Sofia Balugani who has a forthcoming

paper about the microscopic behaviour of iron at

extreme conditions in the journal Physical Review

Letters and who won an award for her presentation at

the European Highpressure Research Group Meeting

in September thinks the most important criterion in

her career choice is that it has a deep meaning It

could be nuclear fusion or it could be planetary science

With the conclusion

of the InnovaXN

programme, dozens of

PhD students are taking

their new skills into

academia and industry.

The best

of both

worlds

InnovaXN doctoral

student Sofia

Balugani pictured

here at the ID24

beamline has won

an award for her

presentation on

iron at extreme

conditions

E S R F/ S T E F C A N D É