About
CALIBRA is the acronym for Cluster of Accelerator Laboratories for Ion-Beam Research and Applications. The concept proposal to establish the CALIBRA Research Infrastructure (RI) was first submitted in February 2013 to the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, the Greek funding agency, which in 2020 was renamed to General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI). The concept proposal was submitted in response to the GSRI’s Call for Expression of Interest for the preparation of the Roadmap of National Research Infrastructures (NRI) and was largely based on ideas developed in the period 2008-2010, when two similar but more composite proposals were prepared and submitted for funding.
The concept proposal was followed by a full proposal that was submitted in July 2013 with the endorsement of the Governing Board of the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, where the CALIBRA RI was proposed to be established. The therein proposed Full-Scale CALIBRA RI was a cluster of five particle accelerators and the budget request was 23,5 million Euros. The proposed Full-Scale CALIBRA RI is an all-encompassing accelerator-based research infrastructure to be developed around the existing Tandem Accelerator Laboratory (TAL) of NCSR “Demokritos”. TAL is a unique research laboratory in Greece hosted by the Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (INPP) of “Demokritos”. The proposed cluster included a) a new 6 MV Tandem accelerator to replace the existing 5.5 MV Tandem, b) the existing 250 keV single-stage accelerator named “Petit Accellerateur pour l’Astrophysique”, in short PAPAP, that was donated by the Centre de Spectrometrie Nucleaire et de Spectrometrie de Masse (CSNSM), now renamed as “Centre de Sciences Nucléaires et de Sciences de la Matière”, Orsay, France, c) a 17 MeV Cyclotron for PET radioisotope production donated by the Dutch University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) to be hosted in a brand new building, d) a 1 MV accelerator for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) and e) a 4 MV single-stage electrostatic accelerator with an ECR source.
The Full-Scale CALIBRA RI proposal was evaluated by a committee of international experts from abroad assigned by GSRI. The evaluation criteria of this first evaluation (“1st Thread”) were a) scientific, technological potential and maturity of the proposed RI, b) effective networking and synergies within the knowledge triangle, c) access policy, governance and sustainability, and d) innovation potential and socio-economic benefits. The evaluation process was completed in February 2014. According the committee’s evaluation report, CALIBRA scored excellent (19/20) and was ranked within the top ten positions among the 75 evaluated RI proposals submitted by all scientific disciplines.
In June 2014, GSRI announced the 43 NRI proposal which successfully cut the first evaluation thread. At the same time GSRI proposed some grouping of the successful NRIs, based on complementarities in scope and scientific relevance, so as to increase synergies among the successful NRIs and their compliance to the Greek Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) that was the 2nd thread in the overall evaluation process. After a clustering and fusioning procedure of NRIs, which was proposed, coordinated and implemented by GSRI in consultation with the coordinators of the NRIs, CALIBRA was requested to fuse with a RI entitled SERA@NURRI that was proposed by the Research Reactor Laboratory of the NCSR “Demokritos”. CALIBRA accepted fusioning and the resulting joint infrastructure was named NuSTAR (Nuclear Science, Technology and Applications Research infrastructure). In December 2014, GSRI announced the National Roadmap of Research Infrastructures comprising 26 NRIs, in which CALIBRA as the major component of NuSTAR was included. This roadmap version can be found here. In 2016 two more RI were included in the roadmap.
In the period January 2015 – June 2016, with the financial crisis engulfing Greece, this Roadmap was modified/updated by GSRI as a result of revisions in the funding strategy adopted by the new leadership of the GSRI, who were appointed by the new government elected in the beginning of 2015. In this revision procedure, all proposed RIs were revaluated by an expert committee assigned by GSRI with regards to their compliance with the Greek National Thematic Priorities for Smart Specialization (RIS3). In this evaluation, only the CALIBRA component of NuSTAR was assessed to be “fully aligned to the RIS3 priority domains and the majority of its deliverables contribute to promoting innovation in the Greek RIS3 thematic priorities”. Following this evaluation, CALIBRA was included (August 2016) in an updated Roadmap, and CALIBRA’s coordinator was invited to submit an updated proposal for final revaluation by an expert assigned by GSRI, within a targeted call of the “Operational Programme Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2014-2020” (EPAnEK). This invitation, however, was accompanied by a ministerial decision according to which the budget of all NRIs of the updated Roadmap could not exceed 4 million Euros. As a result, an updated proposal was submitted in October 2016 with a drastic shrinkage of the Full-Scale CALIBRA RI.
In the downscaled CALIBRA, coined CALIBRA Phase 1, the purchase of a brand new 6 MV Tandem accelerator was replaced by the full upgrade of the existing 5.5 MV Tandem and the procurement of a new 4 MV single-stage accelerator with an ECR source as well as the purchase of a new accelerator for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) were, essentially, excluded. Moreover, the funds for a new building to host the donated 17 MeV Cyclotron together with a laboratory for PET radiopharmaceuticals were removed and only the transport costs of the cyclotron from Groningen to Athens remained. Meanwhile, the cyclotron, a unique instrument for R&D in Greece, has been transported to “Demokritos” and is now at the CALIBRA’s premises.
In 2019, the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Oxford donated its 2.5 MV Tandetron Accelerator for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) to CALIBRA. This donation provided Greece with a unique scientific tool, especially because of the country’s very rich cultural heritage, and gave new momentum towards the implementation of the Full-Scale CALIBRA RI.
The donated AMS accelerator was transferred to CALIBRA premises in October 2022.
CALIBRA Phase 1 was implemented through the CALIBRA Project