Nuclei are complex quantum objects due to complex nucleon-nucleon interactions. They can undergo rather rapid changes in structure as a function of nucleon number. A well known region of such a shape transition is the rare-earth region around N = 90, where accessible nuclei range from spherical nuclei at the closed neutron shell at N = 82 to deformed nuclei. For a better understanding of this phenomenon, it is of interest to study empirical signatures like the E2 transition strength \(B(E2;{2}_{1}^{+}\to {0}_{1}^{+})\) or the E0 excitation strength \({\rho }^{2}(E0;{0}_{1}^{+}\to {0}_{2}^{+})\). The nuclide 152Gd with 88 neutrons is located close to the quantum phase transition at N = 90. The lifetime \(\tau ({0}_{2}^{+})\) of 152Gd has been measured using fast electronic scintillation timing (FEST) with an array of HPGe- and LaBr3- detectors. Excited states of 152Gd were populated via an (α,n)-reaction on a gold-backed 149Sm target. The measured lifetime of \(\tau ({0}_{2}^{+})=96(6)\text{ps}\) corresponds to a reduced transition strength of \(B(E2;{0}_{2}^{+}\to {2}_{1}^{+})=111(7)\) W.u. and an E0 transition strength of ρ 2(E0) = 39(3) · 10−3 to the ground state. This result provides experimental support for the validity of a correlation between E0 and E2 strengths that is a novel indicator for a quantum phase transition. This work was published as J. Wiederhold et al., Phys. Rev. C 94, 044302 (2016).