In the frame of the official visit of Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, to China, on April 11, both countries announced a new cooperation in synchrotron light source development.

As a result, the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of Chinese Academy of Sciences of China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Spanish Consortium for the Construction, Equipping and Exploitation of the Synchrotron Light Source (CELLS) for exchange of experiences and joint efforts on fourth generation synchrotron technology. 

This collaboration was inspired by the visit of the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Universities of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities to High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) with the occasion of the 10th China – Spain Joint Committee Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation that was held in October 2024.

The MOU signed between IHEP and CELLS will foster personnel exchanges, knowledge sharing, organization of scientific symposia, and jointly conducted experiments in advanced synchrotron research, and their subsequent applications, leveraging on the collaboration platform to be set between the large electron accelerator research facilities, HEPS in Huairou Science City, Beijing, China and ALBA in Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.

IHEP is a public research body under the Chinese Academy of Sciences funded by the State.  It is a comprehensive base for particle and astroparticle physics, accelerator physics and technology, and synchrotron radiation light source. IHEP undertakes and operates a number of large scientific infrastructures, among which, HEPS, a newly built fourth generation light source, is the first of its kind in China and one of the brightest light sources in the world.

CELLS is a public body jointly owned and financed by the Spanish central Government and the regional Government of Catalonia. It develops its activities in the field of production, scientific usage of synchrotron radiation, being its mission to construct, equip and exploit a synchrotron light laboratory. It has constructed and equipped the ALBA synchrotron, located in the municipality of Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona), in operation since 2012 and is now developing its upgrade to the fourth generation, ALBA II.