Over the last few years, the whole world has been awakened to the potential of nanoscience and nanotechnology to profoundly change the way we live. This "revolution" is not only the concern of scientists and engineers, but is also having a real impact on many sectors of industry, including electronics, telecommunications, chemicals, transport, energy and the environment, to name a few. Politicians have also been working hard to keep up with the latest developments and promote and support research that will benefit both society and the economy. There are great expectations for the future of nanomaterials science, and most countries around the world have already instigated various nanomaterials science and technology programmes. As material systems and device structures are getting nanosized and nanostructured, a new demand and challenge to precisely and reproducibly characterize their structure, properties and functions is quickly emerging. In fact the detailed knowledge of the chemical, electronic and magnetic structure of nanomaterials is prerequisite to taylor their functions in a controlled way. Advanced analytical techniques provided by modern Synchrotron radiation and neutron sources. will thus play an important role in this endeavour and these techniques should and will become common tools for the nanolaboratories in the near future. The new European initiative GENNESYS has been established to bring these rapidly developing communities together. Various courses of action are currently being planned - the first is to prepare a strategic document on the potential for optimizing and utilizing synchrotron radiation and neutron facilities.

The objectives of GENNESYS are

i) to assess the “state of the art” of nanomaterials science and technology;
ii) to highlight future challenges and research needs, and order them in terms of priority and set out a suitable time frame for achieving them;
iii) to pinpoint the areas of research into nanoscience and technology that will most benefit from joint research strategies with synchrotron radiation and neutron sources,
iv) to review and forecast the effects that increased use of large-scale facilities by nanomaterials scientists will have on the facilities,
v) to formulate a European research programme for “Synchrotron Radiation and Neutrons for Nanomaterials Science and Technology”.

Recognized scientists and technologists familiar with these topics are contributing to this European exercise. Special efforts will be made to ensure that sufficient resources will be made available to promote this important research initiative, in Europe.

In June 2003 a Council meeting will be held to finalize the overall initiative with respect to organization and operation. A GENNESYS workshop is scheduled for the end of September at which the respective task force leaders will present their drafts for the “White Book”. Editing, preparation and publication of the White Book is expected to be finished in one year's time.