Uppsala Berlin Joint Laboratory “Our willingness to cooperate is our strength”
Great political interest for the new Uppsala Berlin Joint Laboratory (UBjL): On the 4th of November, Sweden’s ambassador in Germany, Dr. Lars Danielsson, came personally to the HZB where the UBjL is established for the inauguration of the joint project.
“Many parts of the world are currently regarded as more dynamic than Europe,” Dr. Danielsson said in his opening speech: “But we have great strengths – namely our skill and our willingness to cooperate.” These strengths, the ambassador continued, can be seen clearly in the UBjL: “Such excellent joint research projects lead to results that will bring great benefits to society, our children and our grandchildren.” Dr. Danielsson then gave the symbolic start signal for two experimental stations that will be supervised by the Swedish-German workgroup belonging to the UBjL.
The “Uppsala Berlin Joint Laboratory” is headed by Professor Nils Mårtensson, University of Uppsala, and Professor Alexander Föhlisch, Head of the HZB Institute “Methods and Instrumentation for Synchrotron Radiation Research. “We are very proud that Professor Mårtensson has invested resources from this ERC Advanced Grant in the UBjL,” HZB Scientific Director Prof. Dr. Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla said at the opening. This funding, co-financed by the HZB, has allowed the development of worldwide unique study methods for functional materials.
These methods are based on angle-resolved time-of-flight electron spectroscopy (ARTOF) and MHz pulse extraction at BESSY II. The ARTOF instruments were developed in Sweden by the University of Uppsala and the company Scienta-Omicron in close collaboration with the HZB. “The synchrotron source BESSY II delivers pulses with the most suitable time structure worldwide for optimally using the instruments,” said Svante Professor Svante Svensson, who is part of the UBjL team at BESSY II in Berlin. At the UBjL, the researchers can study the state of functional materials at the lowest possible X-ray dosage. Further methods allow detailed detection of the electronic structure of materials.
- Joint power instead of duplicate structures:Berlin’s research community is further advancing its research excellence by establishing a high-performance, cross-institutional infrastructure for data and AI. With a joint agreement signed on 18 September 2026, the Berlin University Alliance (BUA), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) are paving the way for a joint data science and AI centre in Berlin-Dahlem and Adlershof.
- Marcel Risch has been appointed Professor at the Freie Universität BerlinMarcel Risch was appointed to a W2-S professorship in the Department of Physics at Freie Universität Berlin in August 2026. His research group has been transformed into the department 'Mechanisms of Sustainable Electrocatalysis'. Risch investigates the fundamental mechanisms of electrocatalytic reactions and, on this basis, develops knowledge- and data-driven strategies to improve electrocatalysts for the sustainable production of hydrogen, fuels and chemicals.
- New technique could make MRI more preciseA team of researchers at the University of Stuttgart and HZB has developed a new method that could make MRI even more precise by eliminating “dead time,” a key limiting factor in the measurement process, thereby enabling the detection of signals that are lost using conventional methods. This method opens up new possibilities for medical diagnostics and non-destructive materials testing. The research team presents the new approach in Science Advances.