Full steam ahead: one year into the Walloon task force operations
“This autumn, together with the Walloon Chambers of Commerce and Industry, we will organise a roadshow across several regions of Wallonia—including Liège, Namur, Mons and Charleroi—to meet SMEs. We are looking for companies that already possess technologies with the potential to contribute to the future Einstein Telescope. This first phase will be followed by a series of thematic workshops focusing on technological and industrial challenges, designed to foster collaboration between businesses, researchers and project leaders.”
The announcement perfectly reflects the taskforce’s primary mission during its first year. Michel Stassart looks back on twelve months of intensive mobilisation centred on one key objective: “Preparing Wallonia’s economic and industrial fabric today so it can contribute to the construction of the telescope and become part of its future value chains.”
Building international cooperation
As head of the taskforce, based at GRE Liège and supported by the Walloon Government, Michel Stassart coordinates Wallonia’s contribution to the Euroregio Meuse-Rhin bid to host the future gravitational-wave observatory.
Wallonia actively contributes to the work of the Einstein Telescope EMR Project Office, both operationally and at management level. It also participates in the Euroregional taskforce, bringing together the partner governments, and is represented within the Einstein Telescope Organisation (ETO), the international organisation coordinating the scientists, research organisations and institutional partners involved in developing the project.
Strengthening the industrial ecosystem
Following the launch of Wallonia’s industrial mobilisation during the event held on 11 December 2025 at Val Benoît (Liège), which brought together the region’s key stakeholders around the project, “we have gradually built an industrial ecosystem capable of anticipating the needs of the future observatory,” Michel Stassart explains.
Business developers Pierre-Jean Fondu and Vivian Lausier (Wallonie Entreprendre) are responsible for informing SMEs, identifying companies that already possess industrial technologies relevant to the Einstein Telescope, and supporting the development of preparatory projects. These projects bring together Walloon companies, universities and research centres to prepare the region for the future technologies required by the observatory.
“The objective is clear: to prepare Wallonia’s economic and industrial fabric today so that it can contribute to the construction of the telescope and become part of its future value chains,” Michel Stassart concludes.
Advancing scientific excellence
The Einstein Telescope bid is, first and foremost, a fundamental science project. In Wallonia, every university of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation contributes to the preparatory projects, each bringing its own expertise.
Four research programmes—ETGEO, ETOPT, CRISTAL and ETLOG—allow Wallonia to investigate different aspects of the Einstein Telescope. Together, they cover the observatory’s entire life cycle, estimated at no less than fifty years, from subsurface investigations to identify the most suitable site through to scientific data exploitation.
ULiège
Within the proposed search area, Walloon university teams play a leading role in the feasibility studies. At the University of Liège (ULiège), Prof. Frédéric Nguyen, Vice-Dean of Research of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, leads the ETGEO programme, combining deep boreholes with surface vibration measurements using geophones. This work provides a better understanding of the local geology, improves subsurface modelling and assesses ambient seismic noise.
At the Liège Space Centre, the ET-CRISTAL laboratory, led by Prof. Christophe Collette (ULiège, Precision Mechatronics Laboratory), has become a leading experimental platform for low-frequency research. It is home to the world’s largest monocrystalline silicon mirror ever produced, manufactured in Belgium by AMOS. The laboratory develops key technologies for the telescope, including vibration isolation, cryogenic sensors and advanced suspension systems.
UCLouvain
At the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCLouvain), Prof. Giacomo Bruno leads the ET-OPT laboratory, specialising in the telescope’s high-frequency optical instrumentation, complementing the low-frequency research carried out elsewhere.
In the context of this European dynamic, his colleague Dr. Chiara Arina joined the Director’s Office of the Einstein Telescope Organisation (ETO) in March 2026, where she serves as In-kind Personnel Coordinator, overseeing personnel contributions made available by partner institutions to support international studies for the future telescope.
International diplomacy and strategy
While scientific and industrial excellence form the foundation of the bid, its success also depends on strong diplomatic efforts at European level. “In a competition of this scale, the international dimension is decisive,” Michel Stassart emphasises.
From Maastricht, where the Project Office for the trinational bid is based within the Euregio Meuse-Rhine, Wallonia contributes to this international strategy through the secondment of two experts.
Vassil Kolarov, seconded by Wallonia-Brussels International and a member of the Project Office Directorate team since April 2026, is responsible for the Euroregional international partnership strategy and scientific diplomacy with the countries represented on the Board of Governmental Representatives (BGR).
Meriam Ben Abdeljelil, seconded by the Walloon Public Service for Economy, Employment and Research, is part of the team responsible for drafting the bid book. She follows the work of the BGR and contributes to ensuring the consistency of the application submitted to the partner states.
Euroregional education and training
With almost 34,000 person-years of work during the construction phase, followed by 500 direct jobs and 1,150 indirect jobs during its operational phase, the Einstein Telescope represents both a technological and a human challenge.
The partners are committed to a lifelong learning approach, from primary education through to continuous professional development, making the Einstein Telescope a driver for skills development and scientific awareness throughout the region.
“Investing in skills is essential if the region is to fully benefit from the opportunities and long-term impact of the project,” Michel Stassart stesses.
In this context, Marc Genten, seconded by the Province of Liège to the Euroregio Meuse-Rhine, plays a key role in strengthening cross-border cooperation in education. He coordinates the involvement of higher education institutions in training programmes, with a gradual extension towards secondary education.
Wallonia also participates in the Euroregional NEXT3 (New Education for Cross-Border Technologies) project, hosted by the Einstein Academy in Heerlen (Netherlands). Bringing together HELMo and HEPL alongside partners from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the programme develops a shared curriculum in mechatronics and cross-border technologies to prepare the workforce needed for the future Einstein Telescope.
At Euroregional level, NEXT3 complements other educational cooperation initiatives such as Teach³, Connect’ED and CrossCircular, which promote school exchanges, career guidance for young people and the development of future-oriented skills. This strategy builds on a strong academic ecosystem, further reinforced by declarations of intent signed by universities (2025) and universities of applied sciences (2026) across the Euroregio Meuse-Rhine.