From 14 to 17 March 2026, the annual meeting of the Lightsources.org community took place in Japan, bringing together 23 synchrotron facilities and 7 free-electron laser facilities, representing 25 organisations from three geographical regions: Europe and the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia and Australia. This year’s meeting was hosted by RIKEN SPring-8 Center – one of the largest synchrotron facilities.

Between 10–13 March 2026, the next edition of the IR Optical Nanoscopy Workshop took place, organized by the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre in cooperation with COMEF Sp. z o.o. and attocube systems GmbH. This year’s event was held at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Jagiellonian University and in the SOLARIS Centre, gathering nearly 150 participants – researchers, doctoral students, and specialists working on the characterization of materials at the nanometric scale.

On 9 March 2026, a meeting dedicated to the role of research infrastructures in developing technologies that strengthen resilience, civil security, and Europe’s competitiveness took place at the Brussels Office of the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR). The event was organised in cooperation with Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre of the Jagiellonian University, and the Military University of Technology in Warsaw, with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

The CIRI beamline hosted a research team from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, comprising scholars from two departments: the Institute of Archaeology – MSc Judyta Bąk – and the Faculty of Chemistry – Dr. Dominika Pawcenis. The primary aim of their study was the identification and characterisation of pigments used in tattoos, as well as the investigation of application techniques within soft tissues. This project is conducted as part of Judyta Bąk’s doctoral research and a research grant funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (NCN Preludium 23).

On March 1st, the spring call for proposals for beamtime at the SOLARIS Centre was opened. Researchers can apply for the opportunity to conduct their research on one of the available beamlines, such as: ASTRA, CIRI, DEMETER (PEEM, STXM), PHELIX, PIRX, POLYX, URANOS and cryo-electron microscope Titan Krios G3i. The deadline for submitting proposals will be the April 1st. of 2026 at 23:59 CET. We warmly invite you to submit proposals and carry out your research at the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre.