Second Call for 2022A Proposals for Engineering Science Research Beamlines Closed

Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) announces the call for proposals for the beamtime of the second period of 2022A at Engineering Science Research Beamline (BL14B2, BL19B2 and BL46XU), which are intended for industrial applications. For the second period of 2022A (from mid-May to early July 2022), General Proposals (industrial applications only), Budding Researchers Support Proposals (industrial applications only), Proprietary General Proposals, and Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposals are accepted.

Note: As for General Proposals (industrial applications only) and Budding Researchers Support Proposals (industrial application only), proposals for complementary use with SACLA (X-ray Free Electron Laser facility), J-PARC MLF (neutron facility) or HPCI including the K computer / the supercomputer Fugaku are included. Please follow the guidelines and instructions below when applying.

Submission Deadline for Online Proposals: Wednesday March 23, 2022, 10:00 am (Japan Time)

 IMPORTANT 

1. Special policy will be applied to 2022A proposals in order to minimize the effects of beamtime cancellations due to COVID-19. Please make sure to check here.
2. Due to beamline restructuring, HAXPES has been the only measurement technique at BL46XU.

Contents

1. Beamlines and the Number of Shifts Available to Users

Research Period / 2nd period of 2022A from mid-May to early July 2022

* 1 shift is 8 hours and for any proposals that are allocated by the hour, the fees are charged by the hour.

Please click on the links to see specifications and the status of experimental stations. If you have questions about the experimental stations, please contact the beamline scientist of the desired beamline(s) before applying for beamtime. To see what kinds of experiments have been performed at SPring-8, please refer to the SPring-8 Solution Database.
IMPORTANT : Beamtime schedule for successful proposals will be coordinated, so please pay attention to contact from JASRI staff.

2. Outline of Proposals Invited

2.1 General Proposal (Industrial Applications only)

This program is aimed at non-proprietary General Proposals for Industrial Application research, which are accepted only at the Engineering Science Research Beamlines (BL14B2, BL19B2 and BL46XU).

[Complementary Use with SACLA, J-PARC MLF or HPCI including the K computer / the supercomputer Fugaku]
(a) If you have already carried out experiment at SACLA, J-PARC MLF or HPCI including the K computer / the supercomputer Fugaku applications, or (b) If you plan to apply for SACLA, J-PARC MLF or HPCI including the K computer / the supercomputer Fugaku / the supercomputer Fugaku at the same time as SPring-8, please make sure to clearly indicate your complementary use in your application following the instructions given in “3. Application Method (Important Notes about Information Required on the Application)” of “Call for 2022A SPring-8 Research Proposals in Complementary Use with SACLA, J-PARC MLF or HPCI including the K computer / the supercomputer Fugaku”, so your proposal will be reviewed accordingly.

2.1.1 Requirements

Your application must include at least one person out of a project leader and project team members who is an employee of a private company or related institution. Related institutions by our definition are (1) public testing laboratories, and (2) incorporated foundations/associations whose main business are contract services of experiments/researches for private companies.
Note 1: We categorize national/private universities, independent administrative institutions, special public corporations, and public corporations as neither (1) nor (2).
Note 2: JASRI falls into neither (1) nor (2).
If you are not sure that your research group will meet this requirement, please contact the Industrial Application Division (see 13. Consultation).

2.1.2 Proposal Review

The scientific and technological value, the degree of expectation to produce results, technical feasibility, safety and ethics are comprehensively reviewed. If the research area of your proposal is Industrial Applications, the review of the scientific and technological significance will be focused on the potential and significance of the expected results in terms of technologies for industrial base, the social significance of the proposal, and the contribution to social economy. To promote the use of SPring-8 by new users* and industries**, applicants’ experience using SPring-8 and affiliation is also taken into account.
If your proposed experiment is judged to be feasible at beamlines intended for industrial applications (BL14B2, BL19B2 and BL46XU) but these beamlines are not selected at the time of submission, your proposal may be also reviewed at these beamlines. In that case, we will contact you by email to ask whether you agree or not.

*Applicants who have never used SPring-8.
**Project leader needs to be affiliated with a private sector organization.

2.2 Budding Researchers Support Proposal (Industrial Applications only)

The Budding Researchers Support Program intends to encourage budding researchers who will shape the future of synchrotron radiation research. Under the program, we will provide support for graduate students with an exploratory and original research proposal or research theme.

2.2.1 Eligibility

You must be either
a) Ph.D. students or
b) Master’s students, who will be PhD. students at the time of experiment at the SPring-8.
Applicants are required to show initiative, work independently, and be self-reliant when conducting research. All applicants must obtain permission to apply from their Ph.D. advisors, who can be responsible for the experiment at SPring-8.

2.2.2 Important Notes

Users must maintain their student status at the time of experiment. Otherwise, users are required to carry out their approved Budding Researchers Support Proposals as General Proposals and are no longer eligible for reimbursement of domestic travel and lodging expenses. If you have graduated from school/taken a job and will no longer be a student at the time of experiment, you must report to the Users Office (see 14. Contact/Submissions). Failing to do so may result in you having to refund the amount paid to you.
If you are unsure of your eligibility, please contact the SPring-8 Users Office at sp8jasri@spring8.or.jp.

2.3 Proprietary General Proposal

Users have no obligation to publish their research results. In return, proprietary users are required to pay the fee for the beamtime used (480,000 yen/shift).

2.3.1 Required Document

Applicants are required to submit a “Proprietary Use Agreement for Public Beamline” after online proposal application. Please download an Agreement (PDF form), obtain signature of the personnel in charge of the payment, and send it to the Users Office by email no later than Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

2.3.2 Proposal Review

Submitted proposals are subject to a simplified review process (reviewed only from the viewpoint of technical feasibility, safety and ethics).

2.4 Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposal

The Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Program is intended for research proposals that require the use of SPring-8 and have already been reviewed and approved for a research grant. Proposals with a research grant designed to train young researchers are also invited. Applicants are required to pay the program fee of 131,000 yen/shift (incl. tax). The payment must be made to the designated bank account after the experiment is completed.

2.4.1 Eligibility

Applicants need to have:
a. obtained a research grant (see the applicable grant programs below) through an open and transparent review process, or
b. received an allotment from a person who has obtained a research grant or equivalent.
Note: the size of the grant should not matter.

Applicable grant programs* are as follows:
• competitive research grant programs administered by the Japanese Government Ministries (Grants-In-Aid for Scientific Research funded by MEXT, Science and Technology Promotion Adjustment Funds of MEXT, etc.)
• competitive research grant programs administered by the Japanese Independent Administrative Agencies such as Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), etc.

*In principle, programs on the Comprehensive List of Competitive Funds posted by the Council for Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet Office, are considered the applicable grant programs. Click here to see the list (PDF).

2.4.2 Important Notes

• Proposals with college/university grants, private grants, and grants from abroad are not accepted.
• If the program’s research purpose is irrelevant to your research purpose specified in your application for SPring-8 beamtime, your proposal will be disqualified.
• Before making an application, please contact the Beamline Scientist and estimate the number of required shifts.
• Make sure to provide in the online application form the information about the competitive research grants: name of the competitive grants program, name of the organization inviting applications for the program, name and outline of the project for the program, name of the project leader, project period, amount of the grants, etc.
• In the case of a long-term grant program requiring beamtime in more than one research term, an application needs to be made every half-year research term.

2.4.3 Required Documents

• SPring-8 Program Fee Payment Agreement/Supplementary Information
  Please download an agreement/check sheet (PDF form) from the UI site, provide all the required information and send it to the Users Office (see 14. Contact/Submissions) by email no later than Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
• Research purpose and research plan
  Please make a copy of the relevant pages from your grant application and send it to the Users Office by email no later than Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

2.4.4 Proposal Review

Under the program, the proposals will be granted an exemption from scientific review process; only the degree of expectation to produce results, the safety and technical feasibility of the experiment and ethics (e.g. exclusively for peaceful purposes) are comprehensively reviewed. The beamtime for this program is limited to 20% of user beamtime allocated to each beamline. The maximum beamtime allocated to each proposal is half the limit above. In the event that the total beamtime shifts required by all the approved proposals exceed the beamtime available to this program, approved proposals are prioritized in order of the size of the grant amount. Please note, however, that this criterion does not apply when there is little likelihood that reasonable results will be delivered in contrast with the amount of allocated beamtime; the Proposal Review Committee determines which proposals are given priority.

3. Proposal Submission

3.1 Proposal Application

Applicants/project leaders are required to submit proposals online through the web-based proposal submission system. First, login to the system with your user card ID number and password. If you have not obtained your user card ID number, please complete user registration first. Before starting the application process, project leaders must make sure that all project team members have completed user registration.

Unlike other types of proposals, emphasis is placed on particular criteria in reviewing General Proposals for Industrial Application (See 2. Outline of Proposals Invited). Please download the each MS Word template of General Proposals (Industrial Applications only), Budding Researchers Support Proposals (Industrial Applications only), Proprietary General Proposals and Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposals, provide all required information according to the instructions provided in the template, and copy and paste into the online application form (since there are discrepancies between the required items on the online application form and in the template).

For step-by-step instructions on how to submit proposals, click here.

Important Notes

a. Use of Multiple Beamlines

Applicants wishing to use more than one beamline must submit a separate application for each beamline. Submitting multiple applications is not treated adversely if it is deemed appropriate to use more than one beamline. In such a case, applicants may use the same wording in the abstract page of the applications.

b. Project Leader

A project leader is the person who will assume overall responsibility throughout the experiment at SPring-8. The project leader and the person who is responsible for the research may not be the same person. Likewise, the project leader need not be the first author for SPring-8-related publications.

c. Publications

List the project leader’s publications (e.g. papers, patent applications, conference presentations, newspaper articles, etc.) with abstracts associated with the proposed research in chronological order with the most recent first. List as many as space permits. If there are none, please write “none”.

d. High Pressure Gas Cylinder

If you wish to bring in a high-pressure gas cylinder, please make sure to provide all required information in the online application:
[Known Safety Hazards & Measures to Be Taken]
“Does your proposed research involve any of the following?” > Check the box for “High pressure gas cylinder”. Then, fill out the “Details of samples” table properly. Please be advised that if you attempt to bring in a high-pressure gas cylinder without providing the required information in the application, there may be restrictions on the cylinder to be brought into the site during the administrative procedures required by the High Pressure Gas Safety Act.
Furthermore, when your proposal is accepted, please submit High-Pressure Gas Container Carrying-in Prior Application as soon as possible.

3.2 Document Submission

In addition to the online application, document submission is required of Budding Researchers Support Proposals, Proprietary General Proposals and Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposals. For details, please refer to each proposal’s instructions.

4. Deadlines

4.1 Submission Deadline for Online Proposals

• Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposals
• General Proposals (Industrial Applications only)
• Budding Researchers Support Proposals (Industrial Applications only)
• Proprietary General Proposals

Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 10:00 am (Japan time)

To avoid last-minute technical problems and possible network congestion caused by heavy online traffic, you are strongly encouraged to complete and submit your application well in advance of the deadline. If you have trouble completing/submitting your application online, please contact the SPring-8 Users Office (see 14. Contact/Submissions) before the deadline.

4.2 Submission Deadline for Documents

– General Proposals (Industrial Applications only)

No accompanying documents are necessary.

– Budding Researchers Support Proposals (Industrial Applications only)

Upon successful online proposal submission, you will receive a confirmation email attached with a copy of the Agreement (Rules for Users) in PDF format. Please sign by the project leader and his/her Ph.D. advisor, and send it to the Users Office no later than Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

– Proprietary General Proposals

Proprietary Use Agreement for Public Beamline: Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

– Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposal

SPring-8 Program Fee Payment Agreement/Supplementary Information, and research purpose and research plan: Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

5. Notification of Receipt of Proposal

Upon successful submission, you will receive a confirmation email with a copy of Agreement (Rules for Users) in PDF format attached to it. If you do not receive confirmation within a reasonable time, please login to the proposal system and check if your proposal has been submitted.

6. Notification of Review Results

Review results will be available in “My Page” of UI site at mid-April 2022.

7. Publication of Research Results (All Non-Proprietary Proposals)

You are mandated to (1) publish your research outcomes from the use of SPring-8 in a refereed journal or equivalent, e.g., refereed proceedings, and dissertations, and then (2) register the publications with the Publications Database within three years after the end of the research term. In case the proposed research does not result in a refereed journal, you have two options to publish your research results in (a) a SPring-8/SACLA Research Report (SRR) or (b) a technical journal. Your SRR manuscript will be peer-reviewed by JASRI’s SPring-8/SACLA Research Results Review Committee in terms of quantity, quality and integrity of the information provided. Please note that the technical journal needs to have been accredited by the committee beforehand.

UI site > Log in to My Page > Publications Entry

For details, click here.

8. Experiment Summary Report (All Non-Proprietary Proposals)

Users are required to submit an Experiment Summary Report online within 60 days after their experiment. Submitted reports are made publicly available online two weeks after the report submission deadline for the last experiment of the term (60 days after the end of each half-year research term + two weeks).
For details, please click here.

9. Industrial Application Proposal Report (IAPR) (Non-Proprietary General Proposal for Industrial Applications)

In order to efficiently promote industrial researches at SPring-8, we will ask for your contribution to the IAPRs summarizing the outcomes from your individual General Proposal for Industrial Application. We will accept an e-copy of the report preferably in MS-Word format by email. For details, please click here.

After an editorial review, not peer-reviews, by coordinators in charge, every report will be made available online and in print later than six months after the end of the research term. You will have a good chance to present your research outcomes at SPring-8 Industrial Application Symposium to be scheduled after the IAPRs have been accumulated to a certain number. Besides, we may ask for your permission to appropriately utilize your research outcomes for our PR purposes.

[Relation between Industrial Application Proposal Report (IAPR) and SPring-8/SACLA Research Report (SRR)]
An IAPR does not fall into any type of “publications” defined in “7. Publication of Research Results”. Examples of “publications” are a scientific paper in refereed journals, refereed proceedings, the SRRs, and technical journals. If you wish to submit your research outcomes in the SRRs, you need to notify the Users Office of your will when you submit an IAPR. In this case, the publication of your IAPR will be on hold. Then, please submit it to the SRR and have the report peer-reviewed. The SRR will be reprinted in an issue of the IAPRs instead of your original IAPR. We do not treat your IAPR in this way without (a) your notification to the Users Office upon the submission or (b) your submission for the SRR by the date of issue of the IAPRs.
Please note that you are required to submit at least one article for one proposal, even in cases where you wish to publish your research outcomes in the SRRs.

10.Fees

10.1 Beamtime Fee (Proprietary General Proposals only)

* 1 shift is 8 hours and for any proposals that are allocated by the hour, the fees are charged by the hour.

For the other four types of proposals, users are exempt from paying the beamtime fee.

10.2 Program Fee (Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposals only)

* 1 shift is 8 hours and for any proposals that are allocated by the hour, the fees are charged by the hour.

10.3 User Fees

Users are required to pay the fees to cover the costs of beamline maintenance/operation and consumables actually used (user fees). User fees are composed of a fixed fee charged for wear and tear on the facility and a variable fee charged for liquid He etc.

* 1 shift is 8 hours and for any proposals that are allocated by the hour, the fees are charged by the hour.

• A variable fee will be calculated and added in accordance with the amount of liquid helium actually used.

Important: Although JASRI will support users by covering the user fees for certain types of proposals, there has been no financial support available for non-proprietary beamtime users from foreign organizations, including Budding Researchers Support Proposals, from 2019B term.

Click here for more details.

11. Others

11.1 I.ntellectual Property Rights

Any intellectual property rights arising from the use of SPring-8 belong to those who conducted the research. If JASRI staff are included in the project team members, please contact the Industrial Application and Partnership Division (see 13. Consultation).

11.2 Bioethics and Safety

To ensure bioethics and safety, some types of experiments require the approval, document submission, and confirmation of the director of an applicant’s organization. If you wish to conduct such experiments, please make sure to follow the established procedures. In the event that users fail to follow the procedures or to conform to the guidelines of Japan, their proposals will be removed from consideration or the approval for beamtime will be cancelled.

11.3 Protection of Human Rights and Interests

If a proposed research involves R&D or research activities requiring the agreement/cooperation from the other parties or social consensus, please make sure to implement appropriate procedures before proposal submission regarding the protection of human rights and interests.

11.4 Switch from Non-Proprietary to Proprietary Research

You may request to switch the research type of your approved General Proposal* from non-proprietary to proprietary by shift unit within 60 days of the completion of the experiment or the end of the fiscal year (the end of March), whichever comes first. For details, click here. *As for other types of proposals, the switch is not allowed.

12. Advance Notice of Call for Proposals 2022A Third Period

The deadline for proposals, including Non-Proprietary Grant-Aided Proposal, to be carried out during the third period of 2022A is scheduled at mid-May 2022.

13. Consultation

The coordinators of Industrial Application and Partnership Division are available for consultation. If you have questions about the feasibility of your experiment, research methods, research planning, etc., please send your questions directly to support@spring8.or.jp.

14. Contact (for questions about online proposal submission)/Submissions