The ESRF was originally designed and funded as a facility which would use insertion device (ID) X-ray sources. However, it became clear in the early stages of development of the facility, that scientists from the member countries who had only limited access to beamlines at National Synchrotron Radiation Facilities could benefit from the use of the radiation generated by the bending magnets (BM) in the storage ring. These sources, although less intense than the ID sources can, with appropriate focussing optics, produce X-ray intensities at the sample position which exceed that found in many national facilities. It was therefore agreed in 1990 that scientists from the member countries could form groups to exploit these BM sources provided that this does not divert either manpower or funds from the main ESRF programme. These groups, which design, construct and operate their own beamlines are called Collaborating Research Groups (CRG).

• BM1 - SNBL - Swiss-Norwegian Beam lines
• BM2 - D2AM - French CRG Beamline
• BM8 - GILDA - General purpose Italian beam line for X-ray Diffraction and Absorption
• BM14 - British MAD Beamline
• BM16 - Spanish CRG
• BM20 - ROBL - ROssendorf Beamline
• BM25 - Spline - Spanish CRG beamline
• BM26 - DUBBLE - Dutch-Belgian beamline
• BM28 - XMaS - UK CRG
• BM30A - FIP - French beamline for Investigation of Proteins
• BM30B - FAME - French Absorption spectroscopy beamline in Material and Environmental sciences
• BM32 - IF - InterFace beamline

There are still several bending magnet positions available for the establishment of further CRG beamlines. Interested parties should contact the Director General of the ESRF.