Science for Peace with SESAME and SEEIIST

Abstract

They say that the main CERN restaurant, once known as the Co-op after the company that used to run it, now more prosaically known as R1, is the place where everything of import that happens at the laboratory is discussed. It’s a place where students fresh out of high school can rub shoulders with Nobel Prize winners, and over the years, it has been the scene of many important discussions.

They say that the main CERN restaurant, once known as the Co-op after the company that used to run it, now more prosaically known as R1, is the place where everything of import that happens at the laboratory is discussed. It’s a place where students fresh out of high school can rub shoulders with Nobel Prize winners, and over the years, it has been the scene of many important discussions.

One such conversation took place in 1995 between theoretical physicists and old friends, Eliezer Rabinovici and Sergio Fubini. A professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Rabinovici had grown up in the shadow of the holocaust and had spent much of his life seeking to promote peace between Israel and its neighbours. He was a vociferous supporter of developing education in the west bank and had co-authored a report arguing for Israeli support for the universities there. The two discussed the CERN model for peaceful scientific cooperation between nations. If it could work for Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, could it work today in the strife-torn Middle East? One result of their meeting was the establishment of the Middle East Scientific Cooperation Committee (MESC), which was formalised later that year with a signature in Cairo.

This was not the first time that such an idea had been aired. The Pakistani Nobel laureate, Abdus Salam, is often credited as being the first to propose a regional facility. He was a strong advocate for science in the developing world, being at the origin of both the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS [1]) and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), which now bears his name. Both have a mission of promoting science in the developing world. In an article compiled from interviews given by Salam, and published posthumously by the ICTP in 2004 [2], he summed up his views: “Funds allotted for science in developing countries are small, and the scientific communities sub-critical. Developing countries must realize that the scientific men and women are a precious asset. They must be given opportunities, responsibilities for the scientific and technological developments in their countries. Quite often, the small numbers that exist are underutilized. The goal must be to increase their numbers because a world divided between the haves and have nots of science and technology cannot endure in equilibrium. It is our duty to redress this inequity.”

Herwig recalls one particular meeting in the 1980s. It was organised by the Turkish parliament, and participation was strictly by invitation only. “Abdus Salam advocated a scientific facility for the region with the argument that the Quran encourages the exploration of nature,” recalled Herwig. “At the same time, I reminded the parliamentarians that the Islamic countries had a proud tradition in science: about a thousand years ago, they were world leaders. Later I visited Saudi Arabia and suggested they could establish such a facility in Riyadh, but the time was not yet ripe.”

When the second Oslo peace accord was signed in September 1995, however, there was a palpable sense of optimism in the Middle East, and it led Rabinovici to think that a window of opportunity was opening. MESC organised a meeting in November at Dahab, a fishing village turned resort on the Egyptian Red Sea coast. Held in a Bedouin tent, the meeting’s agenda was Arab–Israeli scientific cooperation. Egypt’s science minister, Venice Gouda, was there, as was the president of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jacob Ziv. Rabinovici and Fubini both addressed the assembled scientists and diplomats, advocating mechanisms to promote cross-border research in the region.

It was a promising start, but the Dahab meeting nevertheless took place under a cloud. Rabinovici, with his dry sense of humour, later recalled that Mount Sinai shook under the influence of a small earthquake as the meeting was taking place—the first of many omens that would dog the development of what would eventually become the SESAME laboratory in Jordan. That was a trivial enough occurrence, but shortly before the Dahab meeting, there had been a far more serious development in Israel. On 4 November 1995, while speaking at a peace rally, the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by an ultra right wing student opposed to rapprochement with Israel’s Palestinian neighbours. The flame of peace had burned but shortly, and it was left to MESC to carry the embers forward.

“At a MESC round table discussion in Turin, Gustav-Adolf Voss from DESY proposed building a synchrotron radiation facility in the Middle East,” explained Herwig. “He, along with Herman Winick from SLAC, were members of an advisory committee at the BESSY I synchrotron facility in Berlin, and when they learned that the machine was to be decommissioned, they suggested donating it to the region.”

It was at another MESC meeting in Turin in November 1997 that this idea took wing. “It was a seminar attended by about 30 scientists from Israel and Arab countries,” recalled Herwig, “and they decided to set up a steering group to take the idea forward.” Sergio Fubini asked Herwig, with his long international experience, to chair that group.

The New Laboratory Takes Seed

Herwig accepted the challenge on condition that the CERN model be adopted, which implied that UNESCO would play a key role in steering the proposed laboratory into existence. Among the first things he did was confirm that BESSY I was indeed scheduled to be decommissioned. “Persuading the German authorities to donate BESSY I, as suggested by Voss and Winick, was relatively easy,” recalled Herwig, “they agreed to this at the end of 1999, but they made two conditions: first, it had to be done immediately since the building had been promised to another organisation, and second, it had to be done without cost for Germany.” This was a start, but at the end of the 1990s, there was no receiving organisation and no budget. Solving these issues became Herwig’s immediate goal.

In January 1998, Herwig persuaded Sergio Fubini to sign a letter with him to UNESCO’s Director-General, Federico Mayor, requesting that UNESCO provide an umbrella for the proposed laboratory as it got off the ground. They received an enthusiastic response.

“As a next step, it was important to find out whether there was sufficient interest among the scientists of the region, or whether such a facility would become a white elephant,” recalled Herwig. Another MESC workshop was organised in April 1998 to find out. Tord Ekelöf, a Swedish CERN physicist was the organiser, and he held the workshop at his home institute of Uppsala University, with a visit to the Swedish Academy of Sciences. The conclusion was that there would be no shortage of users for such a facility in principle, but that details of how it would be implemented should be worked out as soon as possible.

Fig. 11.1

Swedish physicist Tord Ekelöf raises a toast during a MESC workshop he hosted at Uppsala University in April 1998. The workshop concluded that there would be no shortage of demand for a lightsource in the Middle East (Herwig Schopper’s personal collection. ©Herwig Schopper, All rights reserved)

Things had got off to a promising start, but the premonitions that Eliezer Rabinovici felt at that meeting in Sinai proved to be well founded: there would be many obstacles to be overcome before SESAME came into operation. The laboratory had a name, the hardware to build a machine, a fledgling user community, and it had the support of UNESCO. Still missing were members, if it was to follow the CERN model, a physical location, and beamlines to host experiments. The fact that BESSY I was a second generation light source at a time when third generation machines were becoming established would also prove to be an issue: by the time BESSY I was installed in its new home, would it still be attractive to users? Herwig was taking things one step at a time.

UNESCO Takes the Lead

Federico Mayor’s first action was to call a meeting at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris to which governments from all around the Mediterranean and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were invited. The meeting took place in June 1999. It established an interim council (IC), for SESAME, in much the same way that a far earlier UNESCO meeting had established the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) in 1952. At its first meeting, the IC appointed Herwig to be its chair. The IC’s job was to prepare a proposal for the establishment of an international organisation in the Mediterranean region to be submitted to a plenary meeting of UNESCO. “This event should be considered as the conception of SESAME, if not its birth,” explained Herwig. “And Federico Mayor was certainly one of the founding fathers.”

“After the pioneering role that Sergio Fubini had played, he was taken ill and was unable to pursue the dream he’d helped to initiate any further,” said Herwig. “That meant that preparing the proposal for a new international laboratory fell largely to me.” In 2005, Fubini passed away before seeing SESAME reach fruition. Today, researchers visiting the laboratory to carry out their experiments are reminded of his role through the Sergio Fubini guest house, which provides accommodation and meeting facilities for visiting scientists, and was funded by the Italian government.

At the June 1999 UNESCO meeting, Algeria, Armenia, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey were represented. In addition, Algeria, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen also expressed interest in the project, and several countries from beyond the region said they would help. A series of IC meetings ensued over the following years, moving from Paris to places like Yerevan, Cairo and Amman.

In parallel, meetings were ongoing to secure the donation of BESSY I, and it was at one of these, held in Berlin in August 1999, that SESAME got its name. “I insisted that the name should have some meaning and not be a meaningless, difficult to remember, acronym,” remembered Herwig. “After some discussion, the name SESAME was proposed and accepted since the word is widely known from the tales from the thousand and one nights across Arab and western cultures to mean door opener.” Only later were the words Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East tailored to match. It’s good that an appropriate acronym was found, but the door opener became an important psychological element in defending SESAME in political and public spheres."

Securing BESSY

When the IC met in Paris in December 1999, the members of the new organisation faced their first major hurdle. SESAME was not the only bidder for BESSY I: Spain and Poland had also expressed an interest in the second generation machine. The German government favoured the Middle Eastern initiative, but Herwig still had to find a way of covering the cost of careful dismantling and documentation, as well as shipping the machine to its final destination, wherever that might be. For such a complex machine, this was not a trivial task, and it required experience. “There was a proposal to engage experts from Novosibirsk and Armenia, who knew the facility well,” explained Herwig, “but they would have to be paid, and the cost was estimated at $600,000.” SESAME had to find a way to guarantee this before the end of 1999 because the BESSY building had already been promised to the Max Planck Society.

“At a meeting of the IC in Paris I asked for voluntary contributions, but delegates to such meetings rarely have the power to commit funds during the meeting,” said Herwig. Nevertheless, he managed to secure $200,000. During the meeting he turned to Koïchiro Matsuura, who had taken over from Federico Mayor as Director-General of UNESCO on 1 January 2000. “Matsuura invited me to lunch,” he recalled, “and as we sat down to our first course, I warned him that this might become a quite expensive lunch. I asked him for the missing $400,000, without which SESAME would be dead.” Much to Herwig’s great surprise, and relief, Matsuura’s enthusiasm for the project matched that of his predecessor, and he agreed on the spot to provide the necessary funds. This ruffled some feathers: certain ambassadors to UNESCO later complained that Matsuura had not followed established UNESCO protocols, but in reality, the Japanese government had provided him with a considerable sum to be used at his discretion when he became Director-General.

SESAME’s immediate future appeared to be secure as the Russian and Armenian experts got to work, but there would soon be further hurdles to cross. Before long, there was a request to the German government to withdraw the export authorisation for BESSY I because, according to some, it could be used to produce fissile material for atomic weapons. “I was invited to a discussion on German TV with a chemist from Marburg called Brandt,” said Herwig. “I had to admit that SESAME could produce small numbers of atoms of uranium, or even plutonium, but not enough to make a weapon. I pointed out that if synchrotrons could do that, they would also be able to produce quantities of gold, and in that case, SESAME would not have any financial problems at all.” Despite the high-profile nature of the case, it was quickly resolved in a rational way, and BESSY I left the port of Hamburg on a container ship bound for Jordan on 7 June 2002.

The Formal Foundation of SESAME

For a new international organisation to be established under the auspices of UNESCO, the approval of the 195 governments represented in the UNESCO General Conference is required. It’s a tall order. Even to get to the General Conference, which takes place every two years, a proposal has to pass through the Executive Committee, with more than 50 UNESCO members represented. Although convinced that going to UNESCO had been the right thing to do in order to guarantee the sustainability of SESAME, Herwig recognised that the approval process could be a long one. He started by revisiting the CERN convention: the international agreement under which CERN was established in 1954. “Since the CERN convention has proved itself as an extremely successful basis for international cooperation combining the objectives of conducting excellent science and bringing people together,” he explained, “I more or less copied it for SESAME, with just a few minor changes.” In this way, the SESAME convention stipulates one vote per member, regardless of size. Each member can send two delegates to the Council, one representing government, the other the scientific community. One amendment was that UNESCO’s Director-General would be represented, with full voting rights, giving UNESCO a stronger role than at CERN, and enabling it to mitigate in case of political disagreement. “Right from the start,” recalled Herwig, “the same spirit I had become used to in the CERN Council was established: delegations always strove for unanimity in decisions and looked for alternatives if any member could not agree.”

When Koïchiro Matsuura became Director-General of UNESCO, he appointed the assistant-Director-General, Walter Erdelen, as his representative at the IC, and the Polish biologist, Maciej Nałęcz, as its secretary. Nałęcz was soon promoted to the position of Director of Basic Sciences and Engineering at UNESCO, and soon took UNESCO’s seat on the Interim Council. “Clarissa Formosa Gauci, Assistant Programme Specialist in UNESCO’s Division of Basic and Engineering Sciences, assumed the role of secretary,” said Herwig, “and she has fulfilled the role untiringly ever since.”

Fig. 11.2

Left to right: Herwig Schopper, Chris Llewellyn Smith and Maciej Nałęcz, who was Director for Basic and Engineering Sciences at UNESCO in the early days of SESAME, visiting SESAME magnets under test at CERN in 2015 (©CERN, All rights reserved)

Fig. 11.3

Two key women in the early days of SESAME are Council Secretary, Clarissa Formosa-Gauci (left), and Zehra Sayers, who Chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee (Nuovo Cim. 40, 199–239 (2017) [3] ©Springer, All rights reserved)

One day, shortly after Herwig had drafted a convention for SESAME, Nałęcz took him to see UNESCO’s legal advisor. “Without any pleasantries, he broke into a strong criticism of the draft,” recalled Herwig, “and when Maciej asked him if he knew of any better examples, he showed us the CERN convention.” A few awkward moments ensued, during which Nałęcz introduced Herwig as a former CERN Director-General and pointed out that the draft was heavily based on the CERN convention. It was rapidly approved.

There then ensued discussion on how to refer to SESAME’s members. Unlike CERN, which refers to member states, not all of SESAME’s potential members are recognised as states by all the others. “I was sitting in an office in Amman connected by one phone to Yasser Arafat and by another to the ministry in Jerusalem,” recalled Herwig, “after long deliberations, both sides agreed to refer to the Palestinian Authority on behalf of the PLO, so that’s want went into SESAME’s statutes.” The problem was that although Palestine was in common use at the United Nations, it had not been adopted by UNESCO due to Israeli opposition. Years later, when the SESAME council was presided over by Rolf Heuer, the third former CERN Director-General to hold the position, the term Palestine would be quietly adopted.

With the statutes approved by all of SESAME’s prospective members, it was time for Herwig to seek UNESCO approval. “After considerable lobbying to accelerate the procedure, the Executive Committee recommended that the November 2001 General Assembly approve SESAME in principle, and delegate the Executive Committee to take the final decision without waiting for the next General Assembly to come around,” explained Herwig. As a result, SESAME’s statutes were approved in May 2002, with the Executive Committee clearly stating its aspirations for the new international organisation. They issued a statement referring to SESAME as a “quintessential UNESCO project combining capacity building with vital peace building through science [4],” and suggesting that it may serve as a blueprint for similar projects in other regions. “It was a miracle that this approval was obtained in under two years,” said Herwig.

Fig. 11.4

Herwig sits front and centre for a group photo taken at the first meeting in Amman of the SESAME Interim Council in August 2001 (Herwig Schopper’s personal collection. ©Herwig Schopper, All rights reserved)

As with CERN before it, SESAME would come into legal existence once a certain number of member governments, six in the case of SESAME, had confirmed their intention to join in writing to the Director-General of UNESCO. This milestone had been reached by 6 January 2003, the day that the SESAME Interim Council became the SESAME Council. Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey were the founding members, soon to be joined by Cyprus and Iran. “Along the way, many more countries had expressed interest in SESAME,” said Herwig, “and I hope that with time they will come on board. SESAME has also benefitted from the formal support of many observers.” At the time of writing, SESAME’s members are Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, Palestine and Turkey. Brazil, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, CERN, the European Union, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America are observers.

In parallel with pushing the statutes through UNESCO, the SESAME Interim Council had also been hard at work to find a site for the new laboratory, and after careful deliberations, and a considerable dose of serendipity, Jordan had been chosen at a restricted meeting of the Interim Council at CERN on 10–11 January 2000 (see this chapter, In his own words: Finding a home for SESAME).

Building the Laboratory

Once the site had been chosen, no time was lost in setting up the laboratory. A directorate had to be appointed and staff hired. Jordan’s Minister of Education, Professor Khaled Toukan, became Director. A physicist by training and former president of Al-Balqa University, Toukan remains SESAME’s Director to this day. Over the years, he has held various positions in the Jordanian administration. “His close links to the Royal Hashemite Court and the government of Jordan have proved invaluable on many occasions,” said Herwig, “they remain essential for the good development of the laboratory.” The Director is supported by an Administrative Director, the first of which was Hany Helal, an Egyptian who strongly shaped the SESAME administration and later he became a minister in the Egyptian government. This post has so-far been filled exclusively by Egyptians. A Technical Director, hired from the European synchrotron light source community, to bring the necessary expertise to the project completed the initial top management team. Later, when the facility was approaching completion, a Research Director was appointed, again bringing the necessary expertise from Europe.

Fig. 11.5

Four key SESAME figures during a meeting at UNESCO in Paris. Left to right: Khaled Toukan, Director of SESAME, Eliezer Rabinovici, SESAME Council delegate, Zehra Sayers, Chair of the SESAME Scientific Advisory Committee, and President of the SESAME Council, Herwig Schopper (Herwig Schopper’s personal collection. ©Herwig Schopper, All rights reserved)

A training programme was also set up with support from the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose origins can be traced to Eisenhower’s landmark ‘Atoms for Peace’ address to the United Nations General Assembly in 1953. Its goal was to ensure that SESAME would be able to recruit staff competent in all the skills needed to operate a world-class laboratory from its members, and in this it has been a resounding success: since the start of operation, SESAME has been operated largely by staff from its members.

Another important task was to provide a building for the laboratory. The Jordanian offer to host SESAME came with a promise to provide a site in Allan, north of the capital Amman, along with the necessary resources for construction (see this chapter In his own words: Finding a home for SESAME). The next task was to design an appropriate building.

To save time, a decision was taken to copy the building housing the Angströmquelle Karlsruhe, ANKA, light source at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, FZK. “We appointed Dieter Einfeld to be SESAME’s first Technical Director,” explained Herwig.” As someone who knew ANKA well, he had a good feel for the building already.” FZK made the plans for the building available. They were translated into Arabic, and a local architect was engaged to adapt the building to the local context. Soon, everything was ready for construction to begin, and the ground-breaking ceremony was held on 6 January 2003, with H. M. King Abdullah II and Koïchiro Matsuura unveiling a commemorative plaque at the site in Allan.

Fig. 11.6

The original layout of the SESAME laboratory showing laboratories, workshops and experimental hutches. The synchrotron is in the centre of the building (©SESAME, All rights reserved)

Fig. 11.7

The second SESAME users’ meeting took place in Isfahan in October 2003 (Nuovo Cim. 40, 199–239 (2017) [3] ©Springer, All rights reserved)

Even though the building was tried and tested, it came with surprises. The first was that the quality of the ground required foundations deeper than foreseen in order to guarantee the stability required for a synchrotron. “The host state Jordan honoured its commitment to cover the cost,” said Herwig, “but a delay in construction could not be avoided.” Nevertheless, five years later in 2008, the building was ready to welcome the new facility and was inaugurated, again in the presence of Koïchiro Matsuura and H. M. King Abdullah II. “On this occasion,” recalled Herwig, “I handed on the Presidency of the Council to Chris Llewellyn-Smith, but I retained a close interest in SESAME’s development.” Herwig had served for ten years and was made an honorary member of the SESAME Council for life. Like Herwig, Llewellyn-Smith had been Director-General of CERN. His task as President would be to see the facility through to full operation.

Things started well as BESSY I was transferred to the new building. By this time, it had become clear that simply rebuilding BESSY I would not attract good scientists to the lab, and ambitious plans had been hatched to build a third generation light source instead, using components from BESSY I as the injector. Although funding for such a machine was still under discussion, the building was configured to accommodate a modern machine, and the BESSY I components were installed as an 800 MeV injector consisting of a machine called a microtron, and a ring made up of BESSY I components that was named the booster.

Commissioning was underway when disaster struck. Despite having been designed for a European climate, a particularly harsh winter hit Jordan in 2013, and on 14 December, the building’s roof collapsed under the weight of snow and ice. “Luckily the booster was saved by its shielding,” said Herwig, “so with the addition of some ad hoc plastic waterproofing, commissioning could continue.” Jordan remained true to its promise, and a deal was struck whereby the building contractor would pay for two-thirds of the cost of a new roof, with the host state covering the rest. Before long, a new roof was under construction. In the meantime, the microtron and booster were fully commissioned, with the booster achieving its design energy on 3 September 2014, under an open sky. The new roof was completed the following year.

Towards the Third Generation

Even before BESSY I had been secured for SESAME, wheels had been set in motion that would lead to the donated machine being used as a catalyst for a modern third generation light source in the Middle East. The first generation of such facilities had largely been run as parasitic experiments at machines built for particle physics at laboratories such as DESY. The second generation consisted of machines dedicated to synchrotron radiation research, and the third includes so-called insertion devices that are inserted into the ring between bending magnets to produce beams with specific characteristics that allow them to extend the range of research that can be done. BESSY I was a second generation machine, and an early one at that.

“At the Berlin workshop in August 1999, an international study group was set up to work out a first proposal for what we might do with BESSY I,” explained Herwig. That group delivered a proposal in October of the same year to increase the energy from 800 MeV to 1 GeV by increasing the diameter of the ring from BESSY I’s 62 m to just over 100 m. Although this proposal showed the serious intent of the programme, objections were soon raised that given the emergence of third generation machines, SESAME’s role would be limited to training unless a more ambitious plan were adopted: a second generation machine would simply not be competitive for research.

Under the guidance of Technical Director, Dieter Einfeld, a more radical proposal, SESAME II, was advanced in April 2002. This was the first time that a new main ring was proposed. A third generation machine that would use BESSY I as an injector, the new look SESAME would be a 120 metre circumference third generation facility with an energy of 2 GeV. “The cost estimate was about $14 million,” said Herwig. “It seemed unlikely that we could obtain this from the members, so we had to develop a somewhat unusual finance policy.” A call was put out to light source laboratories around the world for donations of equipment, and a request was submitted to the European Union.

Over the coming years, the design evolved until it reached SESAME IV. This was for a 2.5 GeV machine, 133.2 metres in circumference with 50 metres of straight sections that could incorporate insertion devices. “These parameters would make SESAME a fully competitive third generation facility,” said Herwig, “and the only one of its kind in the region.” All that remained was to find the funding.

“The chances of finding funding from the members seemed extremely small,” said Herwig, “but the European Union had a programme to support projects in neighbouring regions. In 1999, informal contacts had been established between UNESCO and the European Commission to sound out potential.” One particularly promising avenue went by the name of MEDA [5], a programme to support countries in the Mediterranean region to reform their economic and social structures and mitigate the social and environmental consequences of economic development. MEDA had a budget of €3.4 billion over three years. “After a meeting in Brussels where we learned about the programme, we submitted a request to the commissioner for external relations, Chris Patten, on 23 July 2001 requesting 10 million Euros for a new main ring,” said Herwig. The initial signs were good, with the research ministers of France and Germany supporting the idea, along with the commissioner for research. Nevertheless, there was a long road to travel before funding would be secured.

In October 2001, an EU delegation attended the SESAME Interim Council meeting, and explained that an independent evaluation of the SESAME proposal would have to be undertaken. Before that could happen, a competitive adjudication process to establish who would carry out the evaluation was necessary. An international committee was sought. By the time the whole process was over, the summer leaves of 2002 were starting to fall. The resulting report raised as many questions as it answered and threw the ball back into Herwig’s court. “In August 2003, SESAME submitted several documents to the EU answering all the questions,” explained Herwig, “and when we eventually received a reply, it just said that the commission was not able to provide community funding to SESAME.”

Herwig did not give up, and his persistence eventually paid off. “The people from the Commission’s neighbouring regions programme were not accustomed to negotiating with scientists,” he explained, “and they insisted on dealing only with the Jordanian government.” As a consequence, invitations and documentation were sent to the Jordanian Embassy in Brussels, translated into Arabic and sent on to Amman, where they were translated back into English and sent to Herwig. “When I saw the names of the people that were invited to the meeting in Brussels, they were all unfamiliar to me,” he explained, “so imagine my surprise when I found that I knew almost everyone in the room.” It seems that the translation and retranslation of names had corrupted the spellings beyond recognition.

The meeting took place on 10 March 2004, and discussions took a surprisingly technical turn. “People argued that in order to be competitive, the machine would need higher energy than 2 GeV,” recalled Herwig, “so that’s when we came up with the plan that would allow the machine to go to 2.5 GeV, which brought the budget up to 12 million.” All the commission’s remaining questions were easily dealt with, but there were still hurdles to cross. There was discussion on which funding programme to use, and the meeting closed with an agreement that an initial grant of €1.2 million could be made under a bilateral programme with Jordan, should the Jordanian government request it. “The following extended discussions with the EU kept coming back to the same position,” said Herwig. “The project is good and the financial needs acceptable, but it was not clear which EU programme should be used to support it.”

“This was a useful start,” said Herwig, “but it was not enough. We had put together a funding model whereby each member would pay according to their ability, but this was for operational costs and not capital investment. When I handed over the presidency to Chris Llewellyn-Smith, we still had not found a solution for funding the main ring.”

A major step forward was made in 2012 when Iran, Israel, Jordan and Turkey each committed to making voluntary contributions of $5 million. CERN also came on board at this time. Thanks to the engagement of CERN’s Director-General, Rolf Heuer, the EU’s seemingly insurmountable hurdle was overcome by providing the funds to the European laboratory rather than to SEAME directly. On 23 May 2013, the commission and CERN announced the CESSAMag project, whereby CERN would oversee the design and production of the magnet system for the SESAME main ring. Finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

On 1 February 2016, the last components of the magnet system left CERN for Jordan. Beamlines had been donated by light sources around the world, and Italy made substantial contributions in the form of the accelerating system for the new machine and the Sergio Fubini guesthouse. On 12 January 2017, the main ring circulated its first beam, and on 16 May 2017, the laboratory was formally opened. “After a successful period at the helm, Chris passed the presidency of the SESAME council to a third former CERN Director-General, Rolf Heuer,” said Herwig, “and the research programme got underway. Today, SESAME is fulfilling the initial vision of producing world-class research and bringing people from across the region together.” Europe continued to support SESAME, providing funds to the Jordanian government that were used to build a solar power plant, making SESAME the first large research infrastructure in the world to be powered by renewable energy.

Fig. 11.8

The first three presidents of the SESAME Council. Left to right: Chris Llewellyn-Smith, Herwig Schopper, Rolf Heuer (Nuovo Cim. 40, 199–239 (2017) [3] ©Springer, All rights reserved)

SESAME got off to a great start and is becoming established as an important player on the international scientific stage. However, Herwig is worried for its long-term future. “It is a pity that a jewel, both from the political and from the technical point of view, is suffering because of lack of funds for full operation,” he explained. “Mainly because of the complicated political situation, some members are not able to pay their full yearly contributions to establish a modest budget. It is thanks to the help of some observers that a research programme can be maintained. Let us hope that the situation improves, and perhaps more countries can join this unique international project, giving it the financial stability it needs.”

The Origins of SEEIIST

In autumn 2016, Herwig attended a meeting in Dubrovnik organised by the World Academy of Art and Science [6]. There was an item on the agenda about development in the Balkans, but discussions were going nowhere. “After a sleepless night,” he recalled, “I came to the conclusion that a project like CERN or SESAME would be the right initiative since the region needed both science and technology, and an improvement in relations between governments. The same night I drafted a proposal.”

Herwig gave his proposed initiative the name South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technology (SEEIIST). “I gave it a flexible title since it was not clear which kind of project might be chosen,” he explained. “It was discussed extensively and adopted with a certain enthusiasm. I hoped that the clumsy title would be changed when a concrete project was chosen, but it is still used today.”

Herwig had in mind a large project that would require cooperation between several countries, providing training opportunities for young people from across the region, while, like SESAME, encouraging scientists to work across borders, to stay in the region, and to reverse brain drain from the region.

After the Dubrovnik meeting, several projects were put forward, but none gained sufficient traction to move the idea forward. The region has a turbulent past, and it proved hard to find a project that SEEIIST’s proponents felt they could push at the level of national governments. “I was close to giving up,” recalled Herwig, “but then by chance I met Sanja Damjanović in March 2017. She was a physicist participating in an experiment at CERN and had recently been appointed Science Minister in Montenegro.” Damjanović became Herwig’s staunchest ally. “She introduced me to Montenegro’s Prime Minister, Duško Marković,” he continued, “who appointed me as a kind of advisor.” Following this breakthrough, a meeting of the research ministers was arranged. It had to take place at a neutral place in order that all participants be on the same footing. “I am very thankful that CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti agreed that we could hold the meeting at CERN.”

On 25 October 2017 ministers or their representatives from ten countries met at CERN. As the originator of the idea, and as someone with years if not decades of similar experience, Herwig was asked to chair. Initial worries that representatives of the various countries would be uncomfortable talking to each other proved unfounded. “I think this was thanks to the unique ambiance of CERN,” said Herwig. “I was able to expound my vision of creating a project on the model of CERN, with the double mission of promoting science, technology and industry while at the same time bringing countries of the region together: building trust to mitigate tensions between countries in the spirit of science for peace.”

The meeting concluded with a declaration of intent signed by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo (with a footnote taking into account the reservations of Serbia), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (now the Republic of North Macedonia), Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Croatia had agreed also, but for formal reasons had to delay the signature. Greece participated as an observer. In the now time-honoured tradition, a steering committee was established on the basis of one member, one vote. Despite being invited to chair that committee, Herwig declined, preferring to leave the task to someone younger. “I agreed to be a member of the committee for life, without vote” he said, “and Sanja Damjanović was elected as chair. Until this day, that declaration remains the only legal basis for SEEIIST.”

Two Concrete Studies

Before the meeting at CERN, Herwig established two study groups to examine the potential for accelerator-based facilities in the region. “One possibility we considered was a 4th generation synchrotron light source,” he explained, “I had good contacts through SESAME, and Dieter Einfeld agreed to be coordinator.” The second group investigated the potential for a state of the art cancer therapy and biomedical research facility. This group was coordinated by Ugo Amaldi, who had worked for many years at CERN and had spearheaded an initiative that led to the foundation of a similar facility, CNAO, in Pavia, of which he was the first director. The accelerator at CNAO was based on designs produced at CERN, which continues to play an active role in developing accelerator technologies for such applications.

“In order to find out which of the two options the scientific community of the region would prefer, I proposed a forum where both would be presented,” said Herwig. “We again needed a neutral location, but this time closer to the region, so we went to the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), in Trieste, with which I had good relations since its foundation under Abdus Salam.” The forum took place on 25 and 26 January 2018 and attracted over 100 participants. Both projects were well received, with neither emerging as a clear favourite. After the forum, the participants were offered a visit to Trieste’s Elettra light source, where they got a foretaste of what might be.

“As often happens,” commented Herwig, “the crucial event took place outside the official agenda. Before pursuing the SEEIIST project I had met the European commissioner responsible for research and innovation, Carlos Moedas. He attended the inauguration of SESAME in 2017, and I asked him whether a similar project for south-east Europe would have a chance of EU funding.”

Moedas answered positively, which emboldened Herwig to persist. Moedas was invited to attend the ICTP forum. “Unfortunately, the Commissioner could not come but Robert-Jan Smits was there,” recalled Herwig. Smits was Director-General for research and innovation at the Commission: a sign of the importance that Brussels attached to the initiative. “I invited Smits and his aid Bernhard Fabianek to a private lunch with Sanja Damjanović and me,” recalled Herwig. “We explained that the project could only continue if we could get some seed money quickly, and when I suggested the figure of a million Euros, Smits asked whether three might be more useful.” SEEIIST left that lunch with an immediate promise of one million Euros for a start-up phase of about a year, with up to three million if that phase proved to be a success. “That brave decision saved the whole project,” said Herwig.

Over time, a majority of SEEIIST members came down in favour of the cancer therapy and research centre, and the idea of a 4th generation light source was abandoned. “In March 2018, the steering committee voted unanimously for this option,” said Herwig, “stipulating that half the beam time should be for treatment and half for bio-radiological research.” Such a research programme would be an important addition to the European research landscape, with relevance not only for developing cancer therapy, but also in areas as diverse as understanding the impacts of cosmic and terrestrial radiation, and preparing for future human spaceflight, in which radiation is an important factor. “It turned out that the visit to Elettra had made an impact on the forum’s delegates,” said Herwig. “They were surprised by the complexity of the facility and questioned whether the region had a sufficiently large potential user community.” On the other hand, each of the potential SEEIIST members had hospitals with some expertise in cancer treatment, so the potential user community was already quite mature. “These arguments were certainly valid and had to be accepted,” said Herwig, “but personally I regretted the decision since in the long run a synchrotron light source would have contributed to a much broader field of research.”

Dieter Einfeld wound up the synchrotron study group, which published a record of its work as a CERN yellow report [7] in 2019. Efforts then focused on designing a radiation facility that would be unique and complementary to existing facilities. Ugo Amaldi’s study group published its work as a CERN yellow report [8] in 2020, and this formed the basis of a preliminary proposal for inclusion on the European roadmap for research infrastructures.

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), the custodian of the roadmap, welcomed the concept, but asked for evidence of sustainability in the form of firm commitments from potential future member states.

Phase 1 of SEEIIST

In April 2018, just after the SEEIIST steering committee had thrown its weight behind the cancer therapy and research centre, Robert-Jan Smits’ term as Director-General for research and innovation came to an end and he was succeeded by Jean-Eric Paquet. “When we met him to discuss the legal implementation of phase 1, Paquet had only been in office for a few days,” explained Herwig, “and he was unfamiliar with the project. This led to some confusion, but we convinced him, and he was extremely helpful.”

As SEEIIST had no legal status at the time, establishing a mechanism for deploying the funds that Smits had promised was a complex affair. For such cases the European Commission had already chosen an agency attached to the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Jülich to be an intermediary with the responsibility for ensuring that the money be spent according to existing legal frameworks. DLR asked the steering committee to propose existing laboratories to manage the expenditures. “CERN was willing to take responsibility for the accelerator part of the project but not for the rest,” said Herwig. “So we had to act fast to find partners to look after the research angle, and to manage the expenses that would be made in the SEEIIST region.” In the end, GSI in Darmstadt agreed to take care of the scientific part while the Slovenian Academy of Engineering would handle local expenses for the region. “The choice came down to who we knew,” said Herwig. “Sanja had worked at GSI during her PhD studies and knew people there, and the president of the Slovenian Academy, Mark Plesko, was well known at CERN since he ran an accelerator controls company.”

The funds were distributed evenly between CERN, GSI and the Academy. “This turned out to make daily life very difficult,” explained Herwig, “since any shift of funds required an amendment to the original contract to ensure there was no wrongdoing. After some discussions, an association was established in Geneva under Swiss law to manage the funds for phase 1 but it came rather late and phase 1 had to be handled mainly by the three partners.” At around this time, elections in various countries led to changes in the steering committee, whose co-chairs became Leandar Litov from Bulgaria and Mimoza Ristova from North Macedonia.

The Swiss Initiative

The declaration of intent by the research ministers of the region looked promising, but it did not carry sufficient legal or political strength to get the project off the ground. “There was no tradition of shared international projects in science,” explained Herwig, “and it soon became clear that I would have to find an umbrella organisation to play the role that UNESCO had during the gestation of both CERN and SESAME.” Herwig’s first thought was the EU, but when that turned out not to be possible, he turned to Switzerland. “I remembered the role the Swiss confederation has played for over a century in helping to settle political issues,” he explained. “I spoke to the Swiss Foreign Minister, Ignazio Cassis, in summer 2019, and during a lunch in Lugano I asked him whether he would be prepared to help SEEIIST in this precarious situation as far as science diplomacy was concerned.” Herwig knew that Cassis had an interest in science policy, and after the minister had discussed the question in Berne with other members of the government, was pleased to receive a positive answer. “Cassis asked me what the next urgent steps would be,” continued Herwig, “and I explained that help was needed in two areas: establishing a convention for the new laboratory and developing a procedure for the selection of a site.”

Herwig’s overture bore fruit. Cassis tasked several of his team to attend SEEIIST meetings, and having convinced himself that the initiative was worthy of support, he wanted to be assured of solid interest from potential members. He proposed to invite the foreign ministers of states represented in the steering committee to a meeting in Bern. Invitations were sent for a date in September 2020, but due to COVID-19, it was postponed until 12 months later.

Fig. 11.9

Swiss Foreign Minister, Ignazio Cassis (front, 4th from left) convened a meeting of Ministers from South East Europe in Bern on 13 September 2021 to discuss SEEIIST. Invited observers included CERN Director-General, Fabiola Gianotti and Signe Ratso, Deputy Director-General of Research and Innovation at the European Commission (Credit: KEYSTONE/Alessandro della Valle, All rights reserved)

Herwig had kept the SEEIIST steering committee fully informed throughout of his approach. “The steering committee had given me the green light to approach Switzerland,” he explained, “and Switzerland’s agreement to help met with unanimous approval, and a certain degree of enthusiasm.”

“The Bern event became a milestone in the history of SEEIIST,” said Herwig. “Ten countries were represented either by the foreign minister, another minister or a representative. Cassis asked them whether their governments were interested in the project and the answer from all 10 countries was a resounding yes. This was the first time that official government representatives had given such a clear statement.” Also attending the meeting was the European Commission’s deputy commissioner for science and innovation, Signe Ratso. “This gave a strong signal that EU might be prepared to provide the funding for the initial investment,” said Herwig. “She said that the newly-established EU neighbourhood initiative for the Western Balkans had been designed to support infrastructure in the region, and that in principle SEEIIST could benefit. However, she also pointed out that at least some individual countries must commit themselves to the sustainability of the new laboratory.”

It was time to establish new working groups: one to work out a proposal for a convention of SEEIIST, and another to propose a procedure for the selection of the site. “I pointed out that the members of these groups should not only be competent to do the job,” said Herwig, “but should also be able to express the political will of their governments.”

Following the Bern meeting, things started to move. The working group on the convention met the very next day, and the group looking at site selection agreed to begin work in 2022. “I was not always sure about the success of SEEIIST,” said Herwig, “but following the Bern meeting, I think that the chances of success were rather good.” At the time of writing, the concept is recognised as a potential flagship for the region, funds for the investment could be made available from the EU, and all the necessary formal steps are being prepared.

The Swiss foreign ministry organised the two working groups and Ambassador Stefan Estermann was appointed to chair both, later being replaced by Ambassador Alexandra Baumann. “A whole team at the ministry was efficiently helping to advance the SEEIIST project,” recalled Herwig, “and the very useful coordinating role of Niccolo Iorno is much appreciated.” In spring 2023 the working group for the convention, after extensive discussions with the EU, presented a draft combining the positive elements of the CERN convention with the legal formalities of a European research infrastructure consortium [9, 11]. “Some details remain to be clarified but the hope is that the statutes of SEEIIST might be approved before the end of 2023 by at least some of the countries, leaving it open for others to join later,” said Herwig. “I have suggested that a high-level meeting of government representatives could formally establish the SEEIIST project by committing themselves to the statutes, thereby establishing SEEIIST legally as an international organisation. Such a status would immediately make it possible for SEEIIST to apply for EU horizon funding covering the transition period necessary to setup a council, select a main site along with other sites for planned hubs, and appoint a key staff with a director who would submit a final proposal.”

“Whether SEEIIST will be able to play a similar beneficial role for South-East Europe as SESAME played for the MENA region remains to be seen,” said Herwig. “To convince the governments that a common project offers additional value compared to a national project is not trivial given the recent history of the region, but promoting peaceful collaboration was, of course, one of the original motivations for SEEIIST. The project is now offered to the region on a silver platter, and it is up to the individual countries to decide whether they want to come to the table. I hope they accept. It seems to me that international collaboration is more necessary now than ever.”

In His Own Words: Finding a Home for SESAME

“At the same time as developing SESAME’s statutes with UNESCO, we were also looking for a site for the laboratory. As a first step the Interim Council agreed on a set of criteria that had to be satisfied by the host. Among these, the most important, but also the most difficult to fulfil, were the conditions that the laboratory must be accessible to all scientists from all over the world, and that the host should make a special contribution consisting of the land and the resources to build the laboratory’s main building on it.

We received a total of 12 site proposals from seven members: Armenia, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Oman, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey. In September 1999, I visited Egypt, Jordan and Palestine with Maurizio Iaccarino, UNESCO Assistant Director General for Natural Sciences to discuss these proposals, and in particular to investigate for ourselves whether the conditions could be fulfilled. The proposals from Armenia, Iran and Turkey were explored at the Interim Council and other meetings. Oman did not follow up. Israel had said right from the beginning that it would not propose a site because of access issues.

It quickly became clear that although the Egyptian proposal was serious, the approval process would involve multiple actors, and would inevitably be long. In Ramallah, we met with President Arafat, but despite early promise, it turned out that the Palestinian authority could not supply the resources for the required special contribution. On a special visit to Jerusalem, I learned of the balancing act that had to be performed between Israel’s commitment to light sources like the ESRF and DESY,  and SESAME. I learned from Jacob Ziv that if the lab was within a short driving distance of the Weizmann Institute, it would certainly be used by Israeli scientists. The Israelis favoured Jordan, if the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River could be opened to Israeli scientists. Armenia already had a synchrotron laboratory, and offered it as a site, but Armenia was on the periphery of the SESAME region. The Iranian proposal was seriously considered but was discounted because Iran could not guarantee access to all scientists.

Fig. 11.10

Herwig met with Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian National Authority, at his home on 1 October 1999 to discuss SESAME (©CERN, All rights reserved)

I vividly remember the visit to Jordan. After an official meeting with representatives of the Jordanian authorities and various universities, we did not seem to be any closer to receiving a formal offer that would fulfil the Interim Council’s set of criteria. I was becoming quite desperate, since not only were we making little progress in Jordan, but there were also no other clear candidate sites emerging at that time. In my desperation I called a former student of mine, Isa Khubeis, who had come to Mainz from Jordan in 1958. He was a good student, had followed me from Mainz to Karlsruhe, and gone back to Jordan with a PhD. In the meantime, he had become a vice president of Al-Balqa Applied University. I asked him if he could help.

Fig. 11.11

Herwig with his former student, Isa Khubeis, who played a key role in securing a site for SESAME in Jordan (Herwig Schopper’s personal collection. ©Herwig Schopper, All rights reserved)

Isa invited Iaccarino and me to dinner in his home, along with the university’s president, Khaled Toukan, and his wife. Later in the evening, another guest arrived, who turned out to be the King’s cousin, Prince Ghazi. After I explained the idea of SESAME to him, along with my dilemma concerning the site, he went out on the terrace to make a phone call. When he came back, he announced that we had an audience with H. M. King Abdullah II at 11 o’clock the next day. The following morning, we were taken to the palace where the King declared that he was willing to host the laboratory in Jordan. When I pointed out to him the two key conditions, he confirmed his decision. As the meeting drew to a close, I asked whether we could have the offer in writing, and half an hour later, Price Ghazi handed me a letter addressed to the Director-General of UNESCO and signed by the King. It offered a site in Allan, close to a campus of Al-Balqa Applied University, and guaranteed to fulfil the conditions stipulated by the interim council.

Fig. 11.12

Herwig with Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan in 2001 (Nuovo Cim. 40, 199–239 (2017) [3] ©Springer, All rights reserved)

The formal site decision was taken at a restricted meeting of the Interim Council on 10 and 11 April 2000 at CERN. It was a very special meeting in that a single person represented each of the Interim Council members, and each had the authority of their government to take a decision. Through a series of secret ballots, the number of sites was reduced. Egypt and Iran withdrew their proposals before the final vote. In the final secrete vote the main choice was between the Allan site in Jordan, which had the King’s support, and the Yerevan site in Armenia for which a wealthy Armenian expatriate living in the US, Hirair Hovnanian, had offered to cover the necessary expenses. The result was in favour of Jordan. I often wonder whether SESAME would have succeeded without the help of my former student Isa, and the promise of King Abdullah II, which has been more than fulfilled.”