Laura Sewell

Laura Sewell works for the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and is the ESS Industry Liaison Officer for the UK. Part of Laura’s time is spent working in the Business Opportunities team, which helps to engage UK industry with the international research facilities funded by STFC.  She has a PhD in chemistry and previously worked at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

STFC is a partner in BrightnESS and I became involved in Work Package 6 due to my role as the UK ILO to ESS. Part of my role is to engage with industry and help them to work with the ESS; this aligns well with the activities of Work Package 6.

We held an ESS Industry Day for UK companies to make sure they were aware of the opportunities available for them to work with the ESS, and also contributed to the survey of industrial users of neutrons (in collaboration with our colleagues in the Netherlands) to help the ESS understand what’s important for potential industrial users.

Projects such as BrightnESS are a useful opportunity to broaden your network, both within ESS and also at the partner institutes participating in BrightnESS. The ILO Network is a good example of this.

A key challenge for BrightnESS in the UK is ensuring that our messages are appropriate for the audiences. We have a strong user community in the UK and so the message to those users is different than if you were trying to build and develop a community from the beginning.