ALLAN, JORDAN—On 16 May Jordan’s King Abdullah II officially opened SESAME, a synchrotron light source that is the first scientific user facility in the Middle East. The project was born out of a wish to strengthen science in the region and the belief that scientific collaborations would serve as small steps toward better relations among often mutually distrusting countries. The members are Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey.
Some 300 scientists, diplomats, and others convened for the inauguration in the hills of Allan, about 25 km northeast of Amman. After passing through a security checkpoint, attendees gathered in a tent to hear about the history of and hopes for SESAME, short for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East. Realizing the project has taken more than 20 years of grit and diplomacy (see Physics Today, December 2016, page 32).
The mood at the inauguration was emotional, celebratory, and optimistic. Jordan’s Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, a champion of science, praised SESAME and the people who have made it possible. She called science “humanity‘s greatest endowment.” And she put in a plug for the World Science Forum, which Jordan will host in November “under the banner of ‘science for peace.’” The practice and policy of science, she said, “have never been more central to our national and regional conversations. Long may this continue.”
Since the launch two years ago of a CERN program in support of the facility’s magnets, outgoing SESAME Council president Christopher Llewellyn Smith and SESAME director Khaled Toukan have each had in their possession half of a model bending magnet. In a symbolic gesture, Llewellyn Smith presented the whole magnet—which he had glued together that morning—to CERN director general Fabiola Gianotti, who in turn handed it to Carlos Moedas, the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation.
The opening of SESAME was “a very moving moment,” says Eliezer Rabinovici, a Hebrew University theoretical physicist who has been involved from the outset. “A journey which started under a Bedouin tent in the Sinai more than two decades ago reached an important milestone under another tent in Jordan.”
Herwig Schopper, who as the first SESAME Council chair was key to getting the project started, says King Abdullah’s offer early on to host SESAME was “decisive and courageous.” In doing so, the king promised to provide a site in Jordan, finance the building, and guarantee that scientists from anywhere in the world could access the facility. No other country could have met those conditions, Schopper says. Without the king’s support, “SESAME would not exist.”
The ceremony was not immune to the fragile political situation in the region. At least one Palestinian delegate chose not to attend in solidarity with prisoners in Israel who had been on a hunger strike since 17 April. And Roy Beck-Barkai, a biophysicist at Tel Aviv University, says that many of the thousands of scientists in Israel who are potential SESAME users will need convincing—they’re used to going to Europe and nervous about traveling to a Muslim country. Still, he is optimistic that the drive for excellent science will “overcome fear of the unknown” and that “SESAME will work.”
The new facility should be a special boon for female scientists from Muslim countries. Gihan Kamel, an Egyptian physicist who is the only woman on SESAME’s scientific staff, says that there will be less opposition to the region’s women traveling to Jordan than to Western countries to do research.
Voices from the ceremony
Hanan Sa’adeh (left), an assistant professor at the University of Jordan, works in accelerator-based experimental atomic and molecular physics. She described a collaboration to study air pollution through the International Atomic Energy Agency that involves scientists from eight Arab states. Scientists from a government lab in Syria are part of the project. . . . Stanford emeritus professor Herman Winick had the idea, along with the late Gus Voss from DESY, to give a retired German machine, BESSY I, to the Middle East to kickstart a regional facility. He told me about how, when Iran wanted to host a SESAME meeting, the Israeli participants helped out by saying they would not apply to go. —TF
Roughly $90 million has been invested in SESAME so far. Besides the project partners, contributors have included the European Union, Germany, Italy, and CERN. Many of the world’s synchrotron light sources have provided training and support. But the facility remains on shaky financial footing. “We are operating on a shoestring,” Rabinovici says. “The project needs more support.”
Although the US has pitched in with training and other activities for SESAME, it has not stepped up with a contribution on par with the European Union’s (at least $10 million). Llewellyn Smith says that he and Toukan have been volleyed back and forth between the US departments of Energy and State. DOE is reluctant to invest in a facility on foreign soil without a strong case for the value to US scientists. And the State Department is having trouble finding an appropriate source of funds and is stumbling on misperceptions about UNESCO’s involvement: By law, the US cannot give money to an organization that recognizes Palestine, Llewellyn Smith explains. Like CERN, SESAME was established under the auspices of UNESCO, which recognizes Palestine. But both CERN and SESAME are independent intergovernmental organizations, so the prohibition should not apply.
The leaders of SESAME will face new challenges as the venture transitions from a construction project to a user facility. The first is to bring two beam lines online this summer; a recent call for proposals attracted 55 submissions. Also in the works is a solar power plant, for which Jordan has promised land and money (using funds from the EU to support the deployment of renewable energy). Slated to be up and running by next spring, the power plant should cut power costs by a factor of 100, which translates to a projected $2 million annual savings for the facility’s first few years.
Beyond that, the emphasis will be on recruiting new member countries and finding $5 million to $6 million a year for annual operating costs plus money to build more beam lines. The 2.5 GeV machine can accommodate 16 or so. “The first priority is good science,” says Llewellyn Smith. “The fostering-better-relations bit will look after itself—provided SESAME attracts large numbers of scientists from different members.”
