Call for proposals for access to integrated multidisciplinary facilities for Materials and Biomaterials

 

CERIC-ERIC offers access through a single entry point to more than 60 different and complementary state of the art techniques and support laboratories, distributed in 11 countries, with the submission of single or multi-technique proposals. A detailed description of the facilities available in CERIC can be found here.

Access to CERIC is open to scientists from all over the world and free of charge, provided the results end data are made available to the community in a reasonable time, according to our Scientific Data Policy.

Deadlines

• March 3rd 2025 at 17:00 CET to have a pre-evaluation and the possibility to improve your proposal
• April 1st 2025 at 17:00 CEST final submission, recommended only for users that are expert in all the techniques requested.

How to apply

Proposals should be submitted online through the Virtual Unified Office (VUO), more information here. The best projects will be selected through international peer review.

Partial support for user’s mobility will be available for a maximum of two users through funding provided to CERIC from the Italian Ministry for University and Research. Read the policy here.

What is new in this call

Elettra 2.0
Starting from July 2nd, 2025 the removal of Elettra and the installation of the new Elettra 2.0 machine will begin at the CERIC Italian Parnter Facility. The new source will exhibit a major increase in the brilliance and coherence fraction of the photon beams. The Elettra 2.0 optics is based on our enhanced symmetric six bend achromat structure (S6BA-E) with a 12-fold symmetry and an emittance of 200 pm-rad at 2.4 GeV. The new structure creates also straight sections in the arcs permitting the installation of additional insertion devices, thus increasing the number of beamlines. Existing beamlines are being upgraded and new beamlines will be installed to take full advantage of the characteristics of Elettra 2.0. The new machine is scheduled for commissioning in the second half of 2026.
Hence, in the current call for proposals access will not be offered to the beamlines located at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, including the Austrian SAXS beamline and the Czech Materials Science Beamline (MSB).

Two offline beamlines will instead be offering access through CERIC:
PRP@CERIC Inelastic Ultraviolet Scattering with fixed-energy sources (IUVS-Offline)
Synchrotron Infrared Source for Spectroscopy and Imaging – Chemistry & Life Science (SISSI-Bio OFF)

CERIC is currently negotiating the addition of extra access time in complimentary CERIC facilities as well as of new synchrotron facilities to its open access offer during Elettra’s “dark period”. Stay tuned for more information.

Ruđer Bošković Institute
For maintenance reasons the ion beam Croatian facilty at the Ruđer Bošković Institute will be partially operational and will be offering limited access only to the following instruments:

• Dual Beam Irradiation Station (IRRA)-only single beam irradiation with lower energy ions provided by 1 MV TDT accelerator
• Nuclear Microprobe and Detector Testing – Nmicro- only ions provided by 1 MV TDT accelerator
• Particle-Inducted X-ray Emission and Rutherford Backscattering – PIXE/RBS- only ions provided by 1 MV TDT accelerator

Budapest Neutron Centre
The Thermal Neutron Three-axis Spectometer (TAST) at the Hungarian Partner Facility Budapest Neutron Centre is currently out of service. However, a new multipurpose instrument, ATHOS Triple-Axis Spectrometer, is offered starting from the current call for proposals.

CERIC continues to offer access to three cutting-edge energy storage facilities:

• European Commission’s Joint Research Centre Battery Energy Storage Testing Laboratory in Petten, The Netherlands
• European Commission’s Joint Research Centre Fuel Cell and Electrolyser Testing Laboratory in Petten, The Netherlands
• Hydrogen Technology Centre (HTC) at Charles University in Prague

Recently added instruments:

• X-ray Microimaging and Microspectroscopy (PolyX) beamline at SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre in Krakow
• AMS-IRMS Accelerator Mass Spectrometry for radiocarbon dating at the CEDAD laboratory of the University of Salento, Italy

 

Two-steps application

The first step allows a pre-evaluation of the proposal at the facilities, followed by two weeks for editing before final submission at the second deadline. Although we suggest taking advantage of the pre-evaluation, expert users may decide to submit their proposals directly at the second deadline.

Fast track access

Read the CERIC Scientific Data Policy here

CERIC user office: useroffice@ceric-eric.eu