User Program Models Worldwide

1
User Program Models Worldwide

• Lessons Learned

Gopal Shenoy
2
Outline of Presentation

• DOE /BES Synchrotron Radiation Facility Models
• SNS Model
• ESRF Model
• CCLRC Model
• ILL Model
• An Assessment Lessons Learned

3
User Access and Demographics at DOE/BES
Facilities
Who are the users of the synchrotron radiation
facilities?
The users come from academic institutions,
industry, and federal laboratories.
What is the definition of a user?
A majority of users visit the DOE/BES facility
at least once in a year to do an experiment.
They are determined by counting the badges
issued by the facility. Less than 0.1 are
remote users.
4
What is the distribution of synchrotron
facility users during 2002?
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Facility Access

• How does a user gain access to the facilities?
• There are two principal modes of access
• As a member of a Participating Research Team
  (PRT)
• at ALS, NSLS, SRC and SSRL,
• or
• As a member of a Collaborative Access Team (CAT)
  at APS
• 2. As a General User
• at ALS, APS, SSRL, and NSLS
• (The term Independent Investigator at ALS and
  APS has
• been dropped)

6
Who owns the beamlines and instruments?

• Facility Owned-and-Operated Beamlines
• All facilities
• PRT or CAT Owned-and-Operated Beamlines
• ALS, APS, NSLS, and SSRL.
• PS DOE/BES has converted many
• PRT or CAT Owned-and-Operated Beamlines (used
  for Materials/Chemical Sciences research)
• to Facility Owned-and-Operated Beamlines, and
  this change will continue.

7
Who paid/pays for the PRT and CAT beamlines?

• The capital costs of the PRT and CAT beamlines is
  
• provided by DOE (BES, OBER), private industry,
  NIH,
• NSF, DOD, DOC, state agencies, private
  foundations,
• foreign countries, etc. The operational costs
  were also
• provided by the same sources.
• In recent years, DOE/BES has reduced its total
• operational support of PRTs and CATs, and
• transferred the operational responsibilities for
  PRT and
• CAT beamlines to the facilities.

8
What is the ratio of PRT /CAT members to General
users?
9
What mechanisms exist for users to participate in
the facility operation?
10
Spallation Neutron Source (SNS)

• Model Facility owned-and operated instruments
• Instrument Advisory Team (IAT)
• Contributes intellectually to the instrument
  development
• Instruments are designed, built and operated by
  SNS with SNS funds
• 100 of the instrument time is available to
  general users through a review process
• Model IDT
• Instrument Development Team (IDT)
• Generates external funding to design, build and
  operate the instrument
• In proportion to the share of construction and
  operating funds contributed by the IDT, a maximum
  of 60 instrument time will be given to the IDT.

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ESRF

• Model Facility Owned-and-Operated Beamlines
• Number of Beamlines (2002) 30
• Proposal Type (a) Standard, (b) Long Term
  Project, (c) Block Allocation Group for PX (BAG)
• Percentage of beam time to general users 100
• Proposal review (including CRG General Users)
  Central
• Member country user support provided 2-3
  people/experiment
• Model Collaborating Research Group (CRG)
  Beamlines
• Number of Beamlines (2002) all bending magnet
  sources 8
• Percentage of beam time to CRG
  66.6
• CRG proposal review CRG Committee
• CRG user support provided By
  CRG
• CRG Publications (2001) 30 of total

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Council for the Central Laboratory of the
Research Councils (CCLRC)

• ISIS, SRS, and Central Laser Facility (CLF)
• Access Model Developed by CCLRC Quiquennial
  Review Project Team (November 2002)
• All proposals reviewed by Facility Access Panels
  (FAPs) one per facility
• Model Facility Owned-and-operated
• Access Modes
• Direct Access 6-month allocation period
• Program Access Long term allocation (3 years)
• Renewal Review at the end of the 3 year period
• Rapid Access Continuous application
• Review By a FAP member by e-mail
• - Service Access at Daresbury Analytical
  Research and Technology Service (DARTS)

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CCLRC (continued)

• Assessment Criteria
• Scientific excellence an timeliness
• Technical feasibility and safety
• Balance of beam time between various access modes
• Charge to FAPs
• Recommend to CCLTC Directors a science program
• Assess beam time request for each proposal
• Relevance of overall beam time requirements
• Future instrument development program
• Identify facility development issues
• Suggest scientific areas better served by program
  access mode
• Annual evaluation (Facility usage, scientific
  output, access modes, emerging scientific themes,
  etc.)

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Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL)

• Model Facility Owned-and Operated Instruments
• Instruments
• Most have been built and operated by ILL with
  funds given by the partner countries.
• The ILL Millennium Program (5 years) for
  instrument renewal has received scientific
  proposals from member country institutions,
  evaluated by the Instrument Committee and
  Scientific Council.
• Instrument time is allocated by a review process
  involving subcommittees of the Scientific Council
  which are part of the Colleges.

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ILL User Access Modes

• Standard Research Proposal (2 cycles per year)
• All proposals requesting beam time, which have
  been submitted in a cycle will be reviewed by the
  Subcommittees of the Scientific Council.
• Subcommittee members are specialists in relevant
  areas of each college and they evaluate the
  proposals for scientific merit, assigning
  priorities and beam time to accepted proposals.
  Before the meeting, the subcommittee receives a
  report on the technical feasibility of a proposed
  experiment from the appropriate college at the
  ILL.
• In the case of a rejection only brief general
  reasons are given as the ILL declines entering
  into correspondence concerning decisions made by
  the scientific subcommittees.
• Submission of a proposal to the Directors
  Discretion Time (DDT) - This option allows beam
  time decision without going through the
  peer-review procedure. DDT is normally used for
  hot topics, new ideas, tests, new users.

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ILL Colleges
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College 9 STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF SOFT
CONDENSED MATTER

• College Sections
• 9-10 Colloidal systems micelles,
  microemulsions, latex dispersions
• 9-11 Polymeric systems solutions, melts,
  polyelectrolytes, blends,
• co-polymers, elastomers, gels, ...
• Main Instruments
• Small angle neutron scattering diffractometers
  D11 and D22
• Reflectometers D17 and ADAM
• Small momentum transfer diffractometer D16
• Diffuse scattering polarization analysis
  spectrometer D7
• Thermal neutron four-circle diffractometer for
  large unit cell D19
• High-intensity two-axis diffractometer with
  variable resolution D20
• Time of Flight spectrometers IN5 and IN6
• Spin echo spectrometers IN11 and IN15
• Cold neutron backscattering spectrometer IN10
  and IN16
• Thermal neutron backscattering spectrometer
  IN13

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College 9 Subcommittee Members

• External
• David BUCKNALL , Chairperson, Department of
  Materials, Oxford
• Stephan EGELHAAF, The University of Edinburgh
• Tiberio EZQUERRA, Instituto de Estructura de la
  Materia CSIC, Madrid
• Stephan FORSTER, Universität Hamburg
• Erick GEISSLER, Université Joseph Fourier de
  Grenoble
• Isabelle GRILLO, College Secretary, Institut
  Laue-Langevin
• ILL
• Tapan Chatterji, Pierrette Chenavas, Bruno Demé,
  Bela Farago,
• Giovanna Fragneto, Bernhardt Frick, Ron Ghosh,
  Miguel Angel Gonzalez,
• Isabelle Grillo, Wolfgang Haeussler, Hans Lauter,
  Valeria Lauter-Passiouk,
• Peter Lindner, Roland May, Ralf Schweins, Peter
  Timmins

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PRT/CAT/IDT/CRG Model Strengths?

• Leveraging of funds from various agencies and
  sources
• Broad long term partnership between facility
  and outside
• institutions
• Opportunity for the facility to develop
  strong intellectual
• and material bond with universities and
  industry
• Diversity of creative ideas, designs, and
  science
• - Training of students and posdocs on technique
  and
• instrument development who could lead
  efforts at future
• beamlines and new facilities

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PRT/CAT Model Weaknesses?

• Beamline construction by the PRT/CAT members
  requires good
• knowledge of facility infrastructure,
  construction policies, and
• procedures (safety, etc.)
• - Potential duplication of instruments and
  techniques at more than one
• beamline at a facility
• - Generally, beamlines are configured for many
  capabilities which
• introduces operational inefficiency
• Uncertainties of long term operational funding
• - Lack of rejuvenation of PRT/CAT staff
• - Diversity of hardware and software makes the
  facility less user
• friendly to general users

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Facility Owned-and-Operated Model Strengths?

• Beamline construction performed by the facility
  staff is more efficient and cost effective
• Potential duplication of instruments and
  techniques at more than one beamline at a
  facility can be managed
• - Full understanding of the beamline is with
  the facility staff, and can
• lead to excellent operational efficiency
• Construction funds can be centrally provided
  by the facility and
• may be included in the construction budget
• - Central management of beamline software
  development and
• implementation can provide better and uniform
  GUI
• - Planning can provide spares for the beamlines
  reducing the
• downtime

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Facility Owned-and-Operated Model Weaknesses?

• All beamline/instrument funds have to be included
  in the construction budget with little ability to
  seek funds from other sources
• Facility will have only a weak partnership with
  the academic institutions and industry. General
  users have only a distant-cousin relationship
  with the facility.
• Beamlines will be limited in creative and risky
  ideas design improvements have limited path
  tendency towards mediocre science
• Training of students and posdocs are limited to
  data collection and analysis with little contact
  with instrument and technique optimization to
  enhance science
• Limited opportunity to develop future instrument
  scientists
• Limited career paths for the beamline/instrument
  scientists

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Summary

• Selection of a model should be done at an early
  planning stage and should never be changed
• Both models have strengths and weaknesses
• Both ESRF and ILL models are effectively super
  PRT Models Beam time is allocated based on
  financial share of partner countries
• A smaller facility with less than 15-20
  beamlines/ instruments might be more suited for a
  facility owned-and-operated model with some
  improvements, a la ILL, viz. including outside
  users in the design, construction, and operation
  process through the formation of colleges

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Summary (continued)

• The facility owned-and-operated model also has
  some advantages for complex facilities in which
  the accelerator and beamlines/instruments are
  highly integrated in the execution of the
  experiment
• All beamline/instrument costs should be included
  in the TPC, preferably not planning a future
  phase 2 construction!
• Facility be open to all international users
• Only program proposal be solicited, with their
  performance success measured only by the quality
  of science

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Summary (continued)

• Reduce operational bureaucracy. Provide more
  research/academic environment and operational
  flexibility in the user programs
• Seriously consider making the facility a
  Not-for-Profit Private Corporation. ESRF and
  BESSY are such entities. A proposal made by CCLRC
  is pending in UK parliament