IMPACT: Upgrade at PSI research facility approved

Financing of the Swiss Dispatch on promotion of Education, Research, and Innovation (ERI) in the years 2025 through 2028 was approved in mid-December 2024 in the Swiss Parliament. This means the budget that the ETH Domain is to receive for the coming years has been approved. This budget includes 50 million Swiss francs with which the ETH Council will co-finance the IMPACT project from central funds in the period 2025-2028. The upgrade to the user facilities associated with the proton accelerator at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI can thus be realised.

IMPACT is a joint project of PSI, the University of Zurich, and the University Hospital of Zurich. It comprises two significant upgrades to PSI’s research facilities: 

First, under the name HIMB, two beamlines for experiments with muons will be significantly improved. Muons are secondary particles generated by the protons. HIMB will increase by a factor of 100 the number of muons used for research purposes, for example in physics and materials science.

Second, a new facility called TATTOOS will be built, where important radionuclides can be produced. Radionuclides are used to produce radiopharmaceuticals, which in turn are used to diagnose and treat cancer.

“We are very pleased that funding for IMPACT has been approved as part of the ERI dispatch,” says PSI Director Christian Rüegg. “We are proud and grateful that we can continue to invest in the future. Education and research secure the prosperity and independence of Switzerland,” continues Rüegg. “Especially in financially difficult times, we therefore need strong research and innovation and strategic, forward-looking investments. IMPACT is an important step for the future of materials research, medicine and particle physics.”

Rüegg, who is also a member of the ETH Board and represents the four federal research institutes there, is critical of the current austerity measures. “The austerity measures that the federal government has decided on for the ETH Domain in the coming years have already led to the PSI and the entire ETH Domain having to set priorities. For the years 2025 to 2028, projects worth 160 million Swiss francs had to be cancelled,” he notes. The execution of IMPACT is also affected: “We will carry out the implementation of this strategically important project with fewer staff and will have to stretch the necessary co-financing over a longer period of time.”

Fundamental research, materials science, and cancer treatment

The intense muon beams generated at PSI are used in a variety of scientific investigations: In materials science, researchers use them to understand the properties of novel materials and to develop future technologies. Muons are also important in particle physics, because they can be used to experimentally test theoretical descriptions of the subatomic world and of our universe. Finally, archaeological artefacts can be examined non-destructively using muons; researchers from Swiss museums come to PSI for these measurements.

With HIMB, up to 10 billion muons per second will be available for these experiments in the future. “This enormously high particle rate will enable us to tackle completely new scientific questions,” says Daniela Kiselev, a physicist in the PSI Center for Accelerator Sciences and Technologies and head of the IMPACT project management team.

The new facility called TATTOOS is dedicated to medicine. Radionuclides are the crucial components of radiopharmaceuticals: medicinal agents that, inside the body, emit radiation in a targeted way at cancer cells to destroy them. Compared to established external radiation therapy, radiopharmaceuticals have the advantage that they can also reach metastases. The radionuclides that will be produced at PSI in the future will have a dual benefit: They will initially be used for precise diagnosis before closely related nuclides are used for personalised therapy. With its Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences, PSI already has decades of experience in this field.

“In the long term, personalised medicine will require a wide range of different radionuclides in sufficient quantities for tumour therapy,” explains Kiselev. “This can only be achieved with particle beams of sufficiently high energy and intensity. That is why the proton accelerator facility here at PSI is the ideal place for it.”