"Is Lund the best place to build the world’s most advanced centre for materials research?", was the question finally resolved by the group of European research ministers who met in Brussels on the evening of the 28th of May, 2009. The answer was yes. Our fellow competing sites in Bilbao and Debrecen put up a strong fight and were naturally disappointed not to have been selected. However it was thanks to the excellence and the professionalism of the individual campaigns that a site decision was not only possible, but inevitable. The time for ESS had at last arrived!

The European Spallation Source (ESS) will be a multidisciplinary scientific research centre harnessing the world’s most powerful neutron source. Researchers will be able to study the materials of everyday life in all their rich diversity – from plastics and proteins to medicines and molecules – in order to understand how they are built up and how they work. ESS will become a hub in Europe’s research infrastructure.

Lund and the Öresund region have excellent conditions for attracting the world's best researchers: several distinguished universities, a broad research-based commercial and industrial scene, well-developed infrastructure, English-speaking population, cutting-edge research within biotechnology and nanoscience.

There are other leading research facilities nearby such as the MAX IV synchrotron which will sit on the same site in Lund, and XFEL and PETRA III in Hamburg.

ESS will open up entirely new opportunities for researchers within a large number of fields of research. There are excellent opportunities in Lund to strengthen what is already a strong cluster for science and innovation. The site decision now puts in place the final building block completing an international foundation on which to build the facility itself.

A two to three year Design Update phase will be followed by a six to seven year construction phase with first measurements being made in 2019.