LEAPS-INNOV was successfully completed on 30 September 2025

The European synchrotron radiation sources and free electron lasers (FELs) serve a broad scientific community of over 30,000 users and play a vital role in many research fields as well as in high-impact industrial applications. LEAPS - the League of European Accelerator-Based Photon Sources (https://www.leaps-initiative.eu) – aspires to contribute to the technological sovereignty of these large-scale infrastructures while realizing synergies by jointly addressing their strategic roadmaps.  

Based on the LEAPS Technology Roadmap 2018, LEAPS-INNOV, the LEAPS pilot to foster open innovation for accelerator-based light sources in Europe, has contributed to solving key technological challenges for Europe’s light sources while enhancing partnership with industry through open innovation.

In 2021, the LEAPS-INNOV partners have initiated six multinational collaborative technological objectives in source development, optics, detectors, sample environments and data science. Performing research & development in a coordinated manner across LEAPS allows a more efficient use of resources and faster technology innovation and deployment while facilitating partnerships with companies. This will enable Europe to keep leading the way in photon science and provide a European industrial basis for its instrumentation and tools.

LEAPS-INNOV has explored different pathways in targeting industry as an early-stage collaborator, i.e. different procurement actions, joint workshops and forums, and knowledge and technology transfer. Also, it has contributed to building an enhanced engagement with industrial users, based on the critical mass of LEAPS and its vast pool of expertise, tools and scientific know-how. Finally, LEAPS-INNOV has included a pilot activity bringing the light sources closer to user clusters and EU partnerships addressing societal challenges.

In Sept 2025, LEAPS-INNOV has concluded after 4.5 years. Combining new virtual tools with face-to-face events, it has set up a very fruitful collaboration across LEAPS and fostered collaboration with industry, the LEAPS user community and the related large-scale RI community.

The six technology work packages (WPs), which have together involved 56 companies, have successfully completed their programmes:

• In WP2, a novel germanium-based detector for energies of 5 - 100 keV has been successfully deployed for tests at ESRF, bringing the detector from concept to beamline in only 4.5 years. Once a few unexpected performance issues of the Ge sensor are resolved, it will be ready for distribution within LEAPS in the near future.

• WP3 has made significant progress in improving the technical capabilities necessary for the production of high-performance reflective X-ray optics. A pre-commercial procurement (PCP) on mirror figuring techniques has been successfully completed with two high quality prototype mirrors delivered. At the same time, extensive progress has been made by the consortium in standard approaches for the measurement of height errors on two-dimensional freeform optical surfaces at the sub-nm scale. Sub-aperture stitching Fizeau metrology has become the de-facto standard.

• To relieve a severe bottleneck in X-ray science, WP4 has developed a new technology for fabrication of high-quality blazed diffraction gratings for applications at soft X-ray sources based on electron beam lithography (EBL). Gratings of up to 140 mm length and 10 mm thickness were manufactured and tested at a synchrotron and a FEL beamline. They are now commercially available.

• The joint activities of WP5 on sample environments with high standardization and synchronization as well as novel nm-positioning and metrology systems have successfully been concluded leading to new LEAPS standards.

• Three prototypes for novel, highly advanced, but also cost-effective undulators (magnetic structures that are the actual X-ray sources) and one design study together with two measurement benches for quality control of these undulators, have been successfully completed and tested in WP6. Exchange with industry towards a possible knowledge and technology transfer has started.

• Finally, together with industrial partners, WP7 has developed methods for data compression in full-field synchrotron tomography, which produce very large data volumes. Adoption into practice has been successfully explored at one LEAPS facility for all. The concept is ready for deployment within LEAPS.

All of the LEAPS-INNOV WPs are expected to deliver long-term user and science impact. In the context of open innovation, LEAPS-INNOV has tested a number of tools for effective interaction with industry from industrial beneficiaries directly involved into the project, to innovation procurement and concepts for technology production plans. From the start, these tools have efficiently involved innovative companies, particularly SMEs, into the technology developments with active knowledge transfer between LEAPS and industry.

Industry networking and addressing industry as users has been facilitated through a number of European events during the project, an in-depth survey with 157 companies and a very successful SME user access programme. These activities have been complemented by pilot actions with user clusters and EU partnerships such as expert round tables and research forums. Three highly collaborative projects of a pilot co-creation call have all reached and presented outcomes benefiting the LEAPS community and its users.

LEAPS-INNOV has made remarkable progress towards structuring joint technology development and innovation within the LEAPS community, leading to an update of the LEAPS technology roadmap in 2025, https://www.leaps-initiative.eu/leaps-technology-roadmap-2025-strengthening-photon-science-in-europe. The project has contributed to the development of new cutting-edge technologies for LEAPS and generally synchrotron and FEL facilities worldwide. All are expected to reach fast deployment into application and have been spread directly within the LEAPS community, supporting scientific competitiveness and technological sovereignty of these European Research Infrastructures in the long term.

Close interaction with industry already at an early stage of technology development through industrial beneficiaries, strategic procurement and participation in industry forums has supported the innovation potential of the involved companies and started exploring new markets. Both, the RI experts and industrial partners have appreciated the in-depth and regular exchange to exploit joint opportunities. An additional focus has been placed on relations with industry users as well as outreach into the scientific user community. Joint actions of the LEAPS community, such as the LEAPS-INNOV SME access program, have contributed to quantitative and qualitative improvements of the services provided by the research infrastructures.

Significantly contributing to new partnership between industry and the photon sources in a number of technological fields, the goal of LEAPS-INNOV has been to address aspects of the entire LEAPS technology roadmap at once to achieve an improved industry engagement across all relevant areas. Overall, the work carried out within LEAPS-INNOV has brought forward an increased level of cooperation within LEAPS and with industry – these outcomes can be built upon long-term and expanded in the future.