During the course of design, construction and initial operation of the Low Energy Neutron Source (LENS), scientists and engineers of Indiana University have worked closely with the counterparts from the US pulsed neutron sources. In June 2009 an International Mini-Workshop not only kicked off the Compact Pulsed Hadron Source (CPHS) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, but also gave birth to the notion of cooperation among accelerator-based-compact-source enthusiasts in many places in the world. A series of subsequent exchanges, contacts, and teleconferences attested to the common desire for such collaboration among a number of groups. The ICANS-XIX Meeting (March 2010, Grindelwald, Switzerland) offered an opportune occasion to consolidate an alliance; and, in a satellite meeting in Kloten on March 13, 2010 participants unanimously acceded to the establishment of the Union for Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources (UCANS). The eight initial members—those in attendance at Kloten—were:
· USA
o Argonne National Lab (ANL)
o Indiana University
· Japan
o the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)
o Hokkaido University
o Kyoto University
o RIKEN
· China
o Peking University
o Tsinghua University
A number of other potential members were identified at this meeting as well. Jack Carpenter of ANL agreed to serve as a spokesperson of UCANS. In view of the actively ongoing works on accelerators, target-moderators, instruments and optics, all members felt a genuine need for more frequent meetings than the 2-year interval between ICANS meetings. UCANS is not exclusive of but complementary to ICANS. The inaugural meeting was held at Tsinghua University in Beijing, August 15-18, 2010.
The second meeting (UCANS-II) will be held at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, July 5-8, 2011.