Standard applications for beamtime should be submitted electronically via our Electronic Proposal Submission system (EPS), available on the ILL Visitors Club website. Proposals can be submitted to the ILL twice a year, before the deadlines in February and September. Please note that we will no longer accept paper, e-mailed or faxed templates. If you are new to ILL please register as a new member which will give you access to the EPS system.
Submitted proposals are judged by a Review Committee during the two proposal review rounds. Please read the detailed guidelines before submitting a proposal via the EPS system. For any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. You will get full support from the Visitors' Club webmaster.
Proposal Writing Hints
Local Contacts
All external users carrying out an experiment at the ILL must have an Institute staff member as a Local Contact, who will assist in the measurement. The Local Contact will also have had experience in running the instrument concerned, thus ensuring efficient use of beamtime.
In order to maintain close contact with the ILL, all external scientists submitting proposals should attempt to find an interested Local Contact themselves. In cases of difficulty, the appropriate college secretary may be able to suggest suitable ILL scientists, but it remains the responsibility of the proposer himself/herself to establish links with individual ILL scientists. However, scientists or experimental groups wishing to use neutrons for the first time will be given special consideration and are strongly advised to contact SCO for further information.
Technical Form
If you come with your own environmental equipment, you may attach a 'Technical Form' (see below) to your proposal, with the detailed description of your experimental set-up. While using the EPS system you will be offered the possibility of submitting a 'Technical Form', whenever the sample environment code 'Supplied by users' is selected. The procedure is the same as that used for uploading experimental reports. Guidelines.
Experimental reports
Requests for further beamtime must always be accompanied by a report on previous measurements. The lack of an experimental report attached to a continuation proposal can lead to rejection.
All ILL experimental reports are now software-archived and accessible via the web server as PDF files. Experimental reports must be submitted on the web via the Visitors Club after having logged in with your personal ID.
Experimental reports uploaded via the web are made available immediately after reception.
When preparing your report, please follow the instructions.
Deadlines for Standard Submission
Deadlines for proposal submission are usually in February and September. The web system is operational for about two months before each deadline. The exact dates will be detailed in our 'Call for proposals', e-mailed to all ILL users twice a year in January and July. Precise information will also be given on our website. (If you wish to be included in the our users' mailing list please contact SCO)
There are 4 reactor cycles a year (one cycle is 50 days). Accepted proposals submitted by February will receive beamtime in the second half of the year and those submitted by September during the first half of the following year.
Review Procedure For Proposals
All proposals requesting beamtime, which have been submitted to SCO, will be reviewed by the subcommittees of the Scientific Council, approximately 8 weeks after the deadlines for submission of applications. Beamtime allocation is on the basis of scientific merit, provided the experiment proposed meets technical feasibility and safety requirements.
Subcommittee members are specialists in the relevant areas of each college and they evaluate the proposals for scientific merit, assigning priorities and beamtime 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.
Immediately after each meeting of the subcommittees the main proposer will be informed if his/her research proposal has been accepted. In the case of a rejection only brief general reasons are given as the ILL declines to enter into correspondence concerning decisions made by the scientific subcommittees.
Experimental Schedules & Invitations
Schedules for a period of six months are normally compiled in the few weeks following the subcommittee meetings. This entails reserving the appropriate beamtime and issuing invitations for some 350 experiments.
Clearly, proposers must make every effort to accept the dates suggested and any modifications or constraints must be communicated to SCO and your Local Contact or Instrument Responsible as soon as possible after notification of the decision.
After receiving the electronic invitation, please reply as early as possible and submit it to SCO with all relevant details about your forthcoming visit. You may not enter the site without having previously registered for the experiment. Any substitution must be made known no less than 24 hours before arrival. Visitors from non EU countries should check visa requirements for entering France. Please bring some means of identification in order to permit entrance to the restricted ILL/ESRF/EMBL site.
The technical form can be attached to a proposal to specify details for sample environment equipment supplied by the user. Read the Guidelines for more information.
Please note that before submitting your file via the web you must:
- remove the first page containing the guidelines
- save your document as a postscript file
