QUASARs take the stage at IPAC’23

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Prof Carsten Welsch discussing challenges of setting up a spin-out company at the Industry Session. (credit: IPAC'23)

The QUASAR Group has made major contributions to the 14th International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC’23) held in Venice, Italy from 7 to 12 May 2023 at the Venice Convention Centre. The impressive venue located in Lido in the prestigious area is recognized worldwide as the setting for the annual “Venice International Film Festival”. IPAC’23 was jointly organized by the accelerator communities in Europe, Americas and Asia and hosted by Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste.

Over 1600 delegates from 37 countries, and 121 industrial partners gathered to discuss the latest advances in accelerator science through an intense programme of talks and poster sessions together with an industry exhibition.

Several members of the QUASAR Group attended this important event for the accelerator community and contributed to the scientific programme.  It was the ideal platform to showcase the brand-new MSCA Doctoral Network EuPRAXIA-DN, the STFC funded Liverpool Centre for Doctoral Training for Innovation in Data Intensive Science (LIV.INNO) and the Group’s accelerator R&D. QUASAR researchers contributed over 20 posters, either in person or by proxy, showing their latest results from beam characterization, novel acceleration scheme, optimization of medical accelerators to innovative beam diagnostic techniques.

Carsten P Welsch received a large round of applause for his outreach talk on ‘The Physics of Star Wars’. (Image credit: IPAC’23)

Prof Carsten P Welsch was selected as a panel member for the Industry Session. His talk discussed the challenges of setting up a spin-out company using the example of the company D-BEAM Ltd, which was one of the first companies to join the STFC CERN Business Incubation Centre (BIC) at Sci-Tech Daresbury. He also presented ideas of how to successfully engage with funders and research partners. On Thursday morning Prof Welsch presented a well-attended outreach talk on ‘The Physics of Star Wars’ which was accompanied by laughter, cheering and applause from the audience. A short interview of Prof Welsch about his talk can be found on the official IPAC’23 Twitter channel

The ‘Equal Opportunity session’ at IPAC’23. (Image credit: IPAC’23)

QUASARs Luana Parsons Franca and Ondrej Sedlacek assisted in the ‘Equal Opportunity session’, which highlighted where we are and what our next steps could be to alleviate the gender gap, not only science, but in every field.

Thank you to all members of the QUASAR Group who contributed to the preparation, review and presentation of the Group’s world-class accelerator research and development.