During the week of May 17th-21st, the 2010 McStas / VITESS user training took place at Backafallsbyn in the island Hven, situated in the Öresund strait between Sweden and Denmark.

Generous sponsorships from ESS, NMI3 and Risø DTU made it possible to organise this international training event on computer simulation of scientific experiments with "virtual neutron scattering". Among the 30 participants, including 6 instructors, most of the participants were from faciliities and universities in EU member states, but we also had presence from Russia, USA and Malaysia.

During the school, the participants were educated in using the McStas and VITESS tools, including:

• Basic and advanced usage of the software
• Models of neutron sources
• Models of neutron optics, including guides, choppers and monochromators
• Elastic and inelastic scattering kernels
• Methods for estimating background contributions
• Perfect and realistic neutron detectors
• Assembling the above elements to construct full instruments

The full set of teaching material produced for the school has been made available at http://ven2010.essworkshop.org/storage.

As part of the social program, participants visited the remains of Tycho Brahe’s observatory, one of the first large scale science infrastructures in Scandinavia.

The school was organised by  Peter Willendrup (Risø DTU) and Emmanuel Farhi (ILL), supported for the practicals by Klaus Lieutenant (IFE), Linda Udby (Uni. Copenhagen), Erik Knudsen (Risø DTU) and Uwe Filges (PSI).

Participants have expressed very positive feedback about all elements of the school, including choice of location, the chosen level of practicals and their general outcome of the event.