During this exercise, an international panel of experts reviewed the science & instrumentation programme on these two low-energy neutron spectrometers at ISIS. This review also represented a timely opportunity to explore and assess ways forward for both instruments and associated infrastructure over the next decade, including the further integration of data analysis and computational modelling to our science programme, as well as a number of upgrade paths on the spectrometers to maintain and expand our user base beyond current levels. The report presented to the panel can be found here.

On the basis of the above, the panel concluded that the user community of IRIS and OSIRIS is very strong and that there is a very strong business case for QENS capability at ISIS. More detailed recommendations for future developments include:

• The immediate implementation of the OSIRIS development plan.
• The development of more automated sample environment and procedures to broaden the user base.
• User-friendly reduction and analysis within MANTID as a high priority, as well as further hardware upgrades and personnel for time-dependent modelling.

For more details, a copy of the final panel report can be found here.

Over the coming months, we will aim to keep you posted with further developments via our User Group Newsletter Good Vibrations.