Exactly. It’s obvious that a facility like a synchrotron light source takes millions of dollars and also huge expertise and manpower, and it’s also c… - Gihan Kamel

This year (in) December (will be) our 15th users’ meeting. In the beginning, it was difficult to understand our needs as researchers from one region because of the differences between our countries. Later on, and one users’ meeting after another, it became clear that we have common needs and common requirements, so we are trying to explore as much as we can. So, for me and the beamline, I don’t want always to focus on biomedicine. It’s true that we have common diseases in the Middle East, common biomedical and environmental issues. But also the Middle East is very rich when it comes to archaeology and cultural heritage, and, people come together and when they need to they talk to each other and they find common ways to collaborate. So, for example, this researcher from Cyprus working on ancient human remains, these remains were collected from east Iran. We have to invest in these common links between our researchers. I think an establishment of a synchrotron facility in the Middle East is now becoming maybe the only way to bring people together.’

We are also evolving the model of “science for peace”. For example, with Africa being the only continent in the world without a light synchrotron, we are exploiting the connection points between the Middle East and the continent

We don’t think of our villages or our nationality. We don’t have labels in there. Inside SESAME we are SESAME staff. I have attended SESAME users’ meetings for 12 years. In the beginning I saw people clustering in groups. If you saw the last users’ meeting last year, people were really mingling together and they were chatting and sitting together to discuss scientific projects even if their governments are in a really, really bad diplomatic situation.’