French ILOs met in Paris to discuss collaboration opportunities

The French BrightnESS partners Antoine Daël and Florence Ragon from CEA arranged the day ‘Journée ILOs’ under the framework of BrightnESS. The day was introduced by Christian Chardonnet, Head of the Large Research Infrastructures Department from the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

The inspiration for the ILO day came from the Big Science Business Forum (BSBF), held in February in Copenhagen, where the European ILOs met for a discussion session on how to strengthen the European network of ILOs. The BSBF spun some ideas on how to create more efficient coordination between the French ILOs and how to make better use of the network.

The day included presentations from the French ILOs of Fusion for Energy, CERN, ESS and ESO as well as a presentation by BrightnESS partner Juliette Forneris from the Danish Technological Institute, who shared best practice input from the Danish ILO network and presented the diversity of ILO network organisations at the European level.

The ILO day was very fruitful. The participants showed a great interest in increasing their collaboration and discussed the opportunity to host a joint French stand at the upcoming BSBF in 2020. The French organisers of the ITER Business Forum (IBF) offered to host a joint French ILO meeting at the next IBF, in March 2019, to continue to collaborative discussions.