General information, eligibility, proposals

General

The NMI3-II project falls within the activity 'Research Infrastructures' of the EU Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (NMI3-II Grant number 283883). The Integrated Infrastructure Initiative for Neutron Scattering and Muon Spectroscopy (NMI3-II) brings together 18 partner organizations from 12 countries, including all major facilities in the fields of neutron scattering and muon spectroscopy, together with other interested organisations (see overview on the web).

NPL is funded as one of the partners within the NMI3-II program. Therefore, within its Access activities,  we are able to support our users from EU member countries and associated states, except those from Czech Republic, by the reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses.

Criteria for Eligibility:

Only user groups that are entitled to disseminate the knowledge they have generated under the project are eligible to benefit from access to the infrastructure under the NMI3 project. The sole exception to this rule shall be user groups from an SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, see on Wikipedia for informative description) that wish to use the infrastructure for the first time.

A necessary condition for being eligible for funding is that the proposal clearly originates from a EU member country or an EU associated state (however, according to the EU regulations, users from the host country (i.e. Czech Republic) are not eligible). Hence, both the user group leader and the majority of the user group members must be affiliated to an institute located in a EU member state (except Czech Republic) or in an associated state (called "eligible countries" in what follows). [Note: the affiliation of the researchers is decisive, not their nationality.] In order to assess the eligibility of the proposal immediatelly after the decision of the Selection Panel, it is also  requested that the main proposer is affiliated to an institute located in one of the eligible countries and the majority of proposers and co-proposers are affiliated to an institute located in one of the eligible countries.

Proposals:

Please submit the standard NPL proposal (or proposal for NAA). If you are affiliated to an institute originating from one of the eligible countries and you would like to apply for European funds, please mark the appropriate field in the proposal.

Once being eligible, the proposal is peer reviewed by the NPL Selection Panel together with the non-eligible proposals. The main criterion for funding is scientific excellence of the project followed by the intention to fund young scientists and new neutron users . The proposers are informed about the success of their application for funding together with the information about the general acceptance/rejection of the proposal.

Funding details:

For the users eligible to obtain financial support from Access activity of NMI3, we can offer the reimbursement of the following costs:
- Travel costs: reimbursement of APEX flight or second class railway tickets to/from Prague. According to the institute rules, the local connection within the Prague Integrated Transport System zones P, 0 and 1 (Řež is inside the zone 1) is not directly reimbursed but it is included in the subsistence-costs reimbursement (see below).
- Accomodation: in the institute Guesthouse, if available; eventually in a hotel in Rez village.
- Subsistence costs: a daily allowance for expenses of 450 CZK/day (this amount is lowered in case the accomodation includes breakfast), which is related to the institute rules, will be provided.

We usually reimburse the expenses for one member of a group of scientists performing an experiment at NPL. Nevertheless, if the character of the measurement requires a presency of two experimenters (e.g. tedious experiment, complex sample environment), we can support in a similar way also the second participant. One of the participants should be, however, a young scientist.

The group leader of the experimental team is free to decide which scientist (scientists) out of his team should be supported; but it has to be someone affiliated to one of the elligible countries.

Report duties and data provision for Funded Projects:

As a condition of accepting EU support for the NMI3-supported experiment, the user have to agree to the conditions described in detail here. A short overview is given below:

The users funded by EU within the NMI3 access programme are required to provide some personal data, which will be recorded and used for funding, administration connected with your research proposal, and statistical analysis of the membership within the neutron scattering community.

The NMI3 guidelines also foresee that the funded users should provide a short summary report, where the objectives and also the achievements/difficulties of the performed experiment are summarized shortly. It must be completed promptly after finishing the experiment.

Please, fill the report form and send it back to user.admin@ujf.cas.cz within one month after finishing the experiment.

Finally, users are required to complete the on-line satisfaction report after the experiment.