At the LEAPS launch event in Brussels on 13 November 2017, 16 organisations representing 19 light sources facilities across Europe signed an agreement to strengthen their collaboration. Among the initiators of the agreement and its signatories was prof. dr hab. Marek Stankiewicz, director of the SOLARIS Centre.

On 1 June 2016, Piotr Ciochoń (the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science of the Jagiellonian University - WFAiIS), Mariusz Garb (WFAiIS), Karolina Szamota-Leandersson (SOLARIS) and Jacek Kołodziej (WFAiIS and SOLARIS) did, for the first time, a typical experiment for which UARPES beamline had been designed.

On 9 June 2016, one year after the first start up of the SOLARIS synchrotron, in the storage ring more than 400 mA of beam current was ramped to the final energy of 1.5 GeV.

On March 1, 2016 Poland has formally entered CERIC-ERIC, with the decision of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education to join the consortium, and with the approval of the General Assembly of CERIC-ERIC. With this decision, the SOLARIS Centre in Kraków has been formally appointed as the Polish Partner Facility in CERIC-ERIC.

In May 2016, the SOLARIS team, supported by experts from the AGH University of Science and Technology, the Jagiellonian University and the Prevac company, took the first photoemission spectra on UARPES beamline.