General User Proposals

General users (formerly known as independent investigators) are invited to submit requests for beamtime at the Advanced Light Source by completing a General User Proposal and Request for Beamtime Form for the general sciences or for protein crystallography. Guidelines for completing this form, contact information, and a description of the review process are detailed below.

Beamtime Cycles and Submission Deadlines

General Sciences

Protein Crystallography

Beamtime in the general sciences runs in two annual cycles:

June-November
December-May

Rapid Access: Beamtime requests are now submitted and reviewed on a bi-monthly basis beginning June 15, 2002. Beamtime will be allocated for a two-month cycle beginning October 1, 2002.

Next Submission Deadline

December 1, 2002, for beamtime from June 2003 to December 2003.

General User Proposal and Request for Beamtime Form: General Sciences

Next Submission Deadline

Rapid access protein crystallography beamtime requests must be submitted by the 15th of the month for a two-month run cycle beginning one-and-half months later. Upcoming submission deadlines (and run cycles) are

June 15 (for run cycle August 1-September 30)
August 15 ( for run cycle October 1-November 30)
October 15 (for beamtime December 1, 2002 to January 31, 2003)

General User Proposal and Request for Beamtime Form: Protein Crystallography

Guidelines

Proposals may be for experimental programs or single experiments on existing beamlines. Allocation of beamtime for general users is generally set at 25% of available time for bend-magnet beamlines, with the exception of Beamline 1.4, where 100% of available beamtime is allocated to general users. The amount of available beamtime for general users on insertion-device beamlines is determined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) established by each PRT for a specific beamline. Current available beamtime allocations, by beamline, are as follows:

Beamline 4.0.2 - - 30%
Beamline 5.0.2 - - 40%
Beamline 7.0.1 - - 67%
Beamline 8.0.1 - - 50%
Beamline 9.0.2 - - 40%
Beamline 10.0.1- -30%
Beamline 12.0.1- -25%

If a proposal specifies a particular beamline, the general user must contact the appropriate Participating Research Team (PRT) spokesperson or the local contact (named in the individual ALS Beamline Tables) before submitting the proposal. In addition, investigators must contact the ALS User Services Office and the relevant PRT for permission to use any beamline endstations that are either independently owned or whose use is restricted. Special procedures must be followed to conduct proprietary research at the ALS. For more information, contact the ALS User Services Office (see below).

Before submitting a General User Proposal, it is recommended that principal investigators:

review the ALS Beamline Tables to learn about ALS beamlines' capabilities
contact ALS User Services Group Leader Gary Krebs (see below) for information about beamlines available to general users
contact the PRT spokesperson or local contact listed in the individual ALS Beamline Tables to ask about individual beamlines
read Writing a General User Proposal for the ALS: Guidelines from the Proposal Study Panels

Proposal Review Process

All submitted proposals are reviewed by:

ALS personnel for technical feasibility and safety
PRT members for conformance to the beamline's capabilities
the Proposal Study Panel (PSP), which rates the proposals following the criteria endorsed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in the IUPAP Recommendations for the Use of Major Physics Users Facilities, and makes recommendations on the requisite beamtime

For an overview of the review process, see the Experiment Proposal and Review Path for General Users flowchart. Additional information about proposal procedures and policies is available in User Policy at the Advanced Light Source.

Responses to the proposals are given about two months after the submission deadline. Each proposal is given a numeric rating that is then communicated to the investigator along with comments from the PSP. In some cases, a cutoff score, below which no beamtime is allocated, is determined for oversubscribed beamlines. This score will be published on the Web so that general users may decide whether to rewrite their proposal, remove it, or keep it in the active pool. The most recent proposal scores for all beamlines and cutoff scores (where applicable) can be viewed at:

General Users: Scoring Information and Results
(General Sciences)

Allocating Beamtime for General Users

Once all proposals have been reviewed and assigned a score, beamtime for general users is scheduled by the ALS User Services Office in consultation with the beamline PRT spokesperson and the beamline scientist. This process is overseen by the Division Deputy for Science. The available beamtime is allocated according to the rank order of score, i.e., beginning with the best score and continuing until the beamtime allotment for general users has been met. (Cutoff scores, below which no beamtime is allocated, vary by beamline.) A summary of the final beamtime allocations is sent to the relevant PSP, and the beamtime scheduling dates are finalized by the beamline scientist in consultation with users.

Score Normalization
On highly oversubscribed undulator beamlines, proposals that receive similar scores close to the cutoff score will receive beamtime in alternate cycles, i.e. , proposals near the cutoff score may be allocated beamtime only once each year or less. This procedure is maintained at the discretion of the PSP. For additional information and an example of this process, see Score Normalization in Beamtime Allocation.

Maintaining an Active Proposal

All proposals for beamtime will have the option to remain active for two years (i.e., four six-month cycles). Users can keep an ongoing proposal active by submitting a completed ALS Experiment Report and Request for Beamtime form by email to the ALS User Services Office. The form is in Rich Text Format (RTF) and can be saved to your hard disk, filled out, and attached in an email message with the key words "Experiment Report" in the subject header.

Note: Only investigators who have ACTIVE proposals may submit an ALS Experiment Report and Request for Beamtime.

Additional Information

For information about beamlines available to general users or PRTs, contact

Gary Krebs, ALS User Services Group Leader
Advanced Light Source, MS 6-2100
Berkeley Lab
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510-486-7727
Fax: 510-486-4773
Email: gfkrebs@lbl.gov

For information on proprietary research, contact
ALS User Services Office
Advanced Light Source, MS 6-2100
Berkeley Lab
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510-486-7745
Fax: 510-486-4773
Email: alsuser@lbl.gov