Vector meson photoproduction in UPCs with FoCal

We discuss the physics prospects of photon-induced measurements using the high-granularity FoCal detector to be installed at the ALICE experiment, covering the pseudorapidity interval $3.4 \leq \eta \leq 5.8$. This new detector, scheduled to be in operation from Run 4, will explore the small Bjorken-$x$ physics region in an unprecedented way. In this region the gluon saturation phenomenon is expected to be dominant. Combined with the rest of the ALICE subdetectors, including the zero degree calorimenters, FoCal will serve to reconstruct in a model-independent way the measured photoproduction cross sections for vectors mesons in a wide range of photon-target energies, down to $x$ values of about $7\times 10^{-6}$ and $2\times 10^{-6}$ in ultra-peripheral photon--proton and photon--lead collisions, respectively.