Helmholtz Association supports ATHENA with 29.99 mio. euro grant
ATHENA (“Accelerator Technology HElmholtz iNfrAstructure”) is a new research and development platform focusing on accelerator technologies and drawing on the resources of all six Helmholtz accelerator institutions (DESY, Jülich Research Centre, Helmholtz Centre Berlin, Helmholtz Centre Dresden-Rossendorf HZDR, KIT and GSI with the Helmholtz Institute of Jena). The Helmholtz Association has now decided to pay almost 30 million euros towards ATHENA as a strategic development project.
“This decision demonstrates the Helmholtz Association’s strong commitment to developing and supplying ground-breaking new accelerator technologies for solving the future challenges faced by society,” says Helmut Dosch, who is the Chairman of DESY’s Board of Directors and also the spokesperson for the Helmholtz Association’s research division Matter.
Two flagship projects in accelerator research
Together, these centres want to set up two German flagship projects in accelerator research based on innovative plasma-based particle accelerators and ultramodern laser technology: an electron accelerator at DESY in Hamburg and a hadron accelerator at HZDR. At both facilities, a range of different fields of application are to be developed, ranging from a compact free-electron laser, through novel medical uses to new applications in nuclear and particle physics. As soon as they have reached the necessary level of maturity to be put to practical use in a particular area, new compact devices could be built for use in other Helmholtz centres, as well as in universities and hospitals.
HZB contributions:
Two working groups at the HZB contribute to this project: Johannes Bahrdt's Undulators Department develops and builds two novel undulators: The world's first in-vacuum apple undulator will be used at BESSY II. The second undulator, a sophisticated refined development of the prototype, will be installed at the free-electron laser in Hamburg's lighthouse project. Thorsten Kamps' group "Generation of highly brilliant electron beams" is working on a laser-based beam diagnostic device. The aim is to characterize the properties of the electron beams generated.
“The funding of the ATHENA project is an important milestone in the ARD (Accelerator Research and Development) programme, which was set up by the Helmholtz Association in 2011,” explains Reinhard Brinkmann, one of the initiators of ARD and the head of the accelerator department at DESY. Andreas Jankowiak, head of the Institute of Accelerator Physics at the HZB and spokesman for the ARD programme, adds: "Combining the competence of all Helmholtz Accelerator Centres in this way promises groundbreaking developments and new applications for ultra-compact particle accelerators.
Strengthening competitiveness in Germany and Europe
Ralph Aßmann, the project coordinator of ATHENA and lead scientists at DESY, and Ulrich Schramm, head of laser particle acceleration at HZDR, agree that “The study of new types of plasma accelerators takes place in the context of strong international competition from the US and Asia. ATHENA is consolidating the traditional leading role of Germany’s accelerator research and supporting Germany’s international competitiveness as a place for doing science.”
The work on ATHENA is closely embedded in the wider context of European research through the EU-sponsored design study EuPRAXIA, with its 40 partner institutes, which is also coordinated by DESY. Hence the top German research project ATHENA has had a clear European perspective and orientation right from the start.
Press release by DESY
- 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.
- 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.
- New method shows how molecular switches are influenced by their neighborsResearchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin (HZB) have, for the first time, been able to directly observe how the environment surrounding a molecular switch influences its electronic structure. Molecular switches are molecules that can be switched between two states by external influences such as changes in temperature—similar to a switch with the positions »On« and »Off«. Such molecules are being investigated as potential building blocks for future data storage devices or sensor materials. Using magnetic-field-dependent terahertz spectroscopy, the researchers have now, for the first time, been able to distinguish whether neighbouring molecules in a material are in the same or different states. The results have been published in the journal »Angewandte Chemie International Edition«.