[Closed] Call for 2024B Long Term Graduate Student Proposals

• Please understand that there is a possibility that we cannot provide stable supply of Helium (both liquid and gas) due to the recent situation regarding global helium supply.

Contents

1．What is the Long Term Graduate Student Program？
2．Application Requirement
3．Designation Period and Available Beamlines
4．Procedure from Application to Review
5．Screening of Applicants
6．Notification of Review Result（ Acceptance or Rejection ）
7．Report Submission
8．Support for Long Term Graduate Student Proposal
9．Conditional approval
10．Others
11．Contact

1．What is the Long Term Graduate Student Proposal?

The purpose of the Long Term Graduate Student Proposals is to contribute to the development of human resources who will support and further develop synchrotron radiation sciences. Long Term Graduate Student Proposal is the research proposal using SPring-8, which provides synchrotron radiation with broad wavelength range spanning infrared light to X-rays and advanced measurement systems.

2．Application Requirements

Graduate students in the doctoral course (regardless of nationality) who have been approved by their PhD. advisors, who belong to an institution in Japan at the time of proposal execution and who are able to conduct experiments at SPring-8 independently and responsibility. Applicants 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. If you are unsure whether or you qualify or not, please contact the 11. SPring-8 Users Office.

3．Designation Period and Available Beamlines

（１）Designation Period

Minimum of 1 year to maximum of 3 years from September 2024( Until getting a PhD. ).
※Students who are in the second year of a doctoral course or above can also apply until getting a PhD.

（2）Available Beamline

※BL40XU is not available after the beamtime ends in December 2024 due to the construction for the beamline upgrade. In addition, the BL40XU will not be available in 2025A.
※At each beamline, it is expected that about 10% of the total beam time can be allocated to the Long Term Graduate Student Proposals for each operation period. 
※It is expected that the 10% beam time will be devoted to multiple graduate-student projects at each beamline. For beamlines where some fraction of the 10% beam time have already been allocated to previously approved proposals, the remaining beam time within the 10% limit can be allocated to newly approved proposals in the current period (example: about 5% of the total beam time of the beamline).
※The number of beamtime shifts per proposal (8 hours/shift) should be set within the range of estimated beamtime from the above Beamtime table by consulting with the JASRI staff in advance. It is possible to use multiple beamlines together, but regardless of the number of beamline used, the upper limit of the beam time per proposal (the sum of beam time for respective beamlines used) is the number of shifts equivalent to 10% of the total beam time of each beamline.
※10% of the total beamtime for each beamline in period 2024B will be 30 shifts (tentative).

4．Procedure from Application to Review

（１）Preliminary consultation (Required)

Please consult with the JASRI staff in advance to discuss how the staff will be involved in the research (necessity of hands-on support during the beam time, consultation about data analysis, advice when writing the doctoral dissertation, etc.), and submit the application after reaching an agreement among the three parties (applicant, JASRI staff, and supervisor). Please be sure to check the application form with the JASRI staff before submitting it. When we accept your application, we will confirm with the JASRI staff whether the prior agreement has been reached. If it becomes clear that a prior agreement has not been reached, the application may be rejected.

（２）Application

Please note that this service is available only on weekdays (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.), excluding weekends and holidays, so please contact us well in advance. If you do not receive a reply, please contact the 11. Users Office to confirm the problem.

（３）Deadline for submission

10:00(JST), Wednesday, May, 8, 2024

( Submission should be completed before the deadline )
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 11. SPring-8 Users Office before the deadline. Upon successful submission, you will receive a confirmation email attached with a copy of the Agreement (Rules for Users) in PDF format. If you do not receive the confirmation email, please log in to the system and check if your proposal has been submitted successfully.

5．Screening of Applicants

The screening is conducted in two stages: document screening and interview screening. Those who pass the document screening will proceed to the interview screening.

Interview Date: Mid June 2024

Applicants who pass the document review will be informed of an interview time, and be requested to prepare a presentation on their research plan and experiments up to the end of doctoral course.

6．Notification of Review Results (Acceptance or Rejection)

Notification of document screening result ( Notification of interview date ): Late May 2024 – Early June 2024
Final Acceptance / Rejection result : Late July 2024 – Mid August 2024

7．Report Submission

（１）Experiment Summary Report

The project leaders are required to submit an Experiment Summary Report online within 60 days of their Long Term Graduate Student Proposals in each term. 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, click here.

（２）Register Doctoral Dissertation

In principle, the project leader is required to submit a doctoral dissertation as the outcome. The refereed papers (including refereed proceedings) on which the doctoral dissertation is based should be registered in the JASRI’s database, and the doctoral dissertation should be published and registered in the JASRI’s database within three years of the completion of the designation. If the project leader is not awarded a doctoral degree, please publish a refereed paper ( including refereed proceedings ) instead of a doctoral dissertation, a SPring-8/SACLA Research Report refereed by JASRI or a Technical journal article approved by JASRI within three years of the end of the designation, and register it in the JASRI’s database.

※If your research has produced results, please include the project number and acknowledgments so that the results can be identified as the result of the project.

Travel expenses and user fees for this synchrotron radiation experiment were supported as the JASRI Research Student by Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute（JASRI）through the Long Term Graduate Student Proposal  (No. 2024B#### / BL No.####).

8．Support for Long Term Graduate Student Proposal

JASRI will provide the following support for Long Term Graduate Student Proposal.

• • Travel expenses from the nearest station or bus stop of your affiliation to SPring-8 ( including Guest House ) for the project leader and one student of the project team.

• • User Fees ( Fixed 10,720 yen/ Shift + variable fees )

IMPORTANT:
Users must maintain their student status at the time of experiment. If the applicant is no longer eligible at the time of proposal implementation due to graduation, employment, etc., the proposal will be invalidated after disqualification, please be sure to contact “10. Contact “. Failing to do so may result in you be asked to refund the amount paid to you.

9．Conditional Approval

Conditional approval is given to proposals that are highly evaluated the applicants’ motivation and potential, but for which there are concerns about the feasibility of the research plan and the appropriateness of the experimental methods, such as limited experience with synchrotron radiation experiments. The Long Term Graduate Student Proposal Review Committee will allocate beamtime only for the 2024B.

At the Long Term Graduate Student Proposal Review Committee scheduled for June 2025, the research plans for 2025B and beyond will be reviewed based on the results of the experiments conducted in 2024B, and a decision will be made on whether or not to continue the research in 2025B and beyond.

10．Others

（１） Consent of PhD. advisors

When applying for Long Term Graduate Student Proposals, PhD. advisors are also required to register as a project team member and pledge in the application form that they will be jointly responsible with the project leader for the experiment.

（２） General Insurance and Compensation

Users shall take out appropriate personal injury and liability insurance before conducting experiments. If their project teams include students, they shall make sure that all the students take out appropriate personal injury and liability insurance. If users damage SPring-8 facilities, equipment or persons, either willfully or through gross negligence, JASRI may require them to meet all or part of the cost of repairs. JASRI shall take due account of all relevant circumstances in determining the degree of user liability.

（３） Scientific advice and coaching from JASRI staff

Please list the JASRI staff member(s) applicant would like to receive scientific advice/guidance from in the Co-Principal Investigator section of the application form (required).

（４） Granting of titles

If a proposal is accepted as a Long Term Graduate Student Proposals, the title of “JASRI Research Student” will be awarded to those who wish to apply.

（５） About evaluation

After the proposal is completed, the Graduate Student Research Committee will conduct a closed-door evaluation of the proposal based on documents and hearings. In some cases, applicant may be asked to submit an interim report on the progress of your research.

（６） Poster Presentation at SPring-8 Symposium

Applicant is required to make a poster presentation of your research results and progress at the SPring-8 symposium during the research term.

（７） Application for Graduate Student Proposal Submissions

Please also consider submitting a proposal for a conventional  Graduate Student proposals, which is valid for six months.

11．Contact

SPring-8 Users Office, JASRI
1-1-1 Kouto, Sayo-cho, Sayo-gun
Hyogo 679-5198 Japan
E-mail: sp8jasri@spring8.or.jp