European User Office Meeting 2014

Contact: Dr. Inma Ramos

Large scale facilities offer a broad open access to the scientific community using unique instrumentation and methods at synchrotron, free electron laser or neutron sources. More than 30000 scientists use this offer every year in Europe. Since many years the administrative aspects, local support, communication with users and information on access is done by local User Offices at the facilities. These offices deal not only directly with individual users on side, but with many adminstrative issues starting from organising proposal review procedures, access to the facilities, maintaining accommodation and travel support and keeping track of statistical issues to funding agencies, facility heads or user organisations.

Since start of transnational access European funding has been a major issue in open access to researchers to large scale facilities. A large majority of researchers have benefit her. By the new European Framework Programme HORIZON 2020 many procedures and well know access options will change. User Offices will have to deal with this changes.

Lately, European projects like PaNData, Calipso, NMI3 or EuroFEL between such facilities seems to point towards the harmonization of workflows, software or procedures employed by User Offices. However, each facility has its own national constrains.

The present meeting is a first discussion forum of European User Offices. It was initially proposed after some discussions during European projects meetings like PaNData and it will become an opportunity to know each facility workflows and achievements as well as common worries and future developments.

We encourage you to take this opportunity and to partcipate in this meeting. Suggestions for presentations and reports are highly welcome. Registration to the meeting, which is held on Nov. 3-4 at the ALBA Synchrotron near Barcelona, is open at the meeting webpage

http://indico.cells.es/indico/event/EuropeanUserOfficesMeeting

The meeting is kindly supported by the European TNA Framework Programmes Calipso and NMI3-II/WP5.

What if one could use a single platform to apply for neutron experiments in any European facility?

To submit a proposal for neutron scattering experiments can be a long procedure. Thanks to NMI3 support, a group is working on an Integrated User Access to make this procedure easier to both users and facilities. Learn more here .