Proposals can be edited (until the proposal is submitted) by the principal investigator (PI) and by any experimenter (co-PI and co-proposers) included with an APS badge number. Proposal data is visible to users listed on a proposal, APS management, User Office staff, certain staff members of each beamline selected, the reviewers selected to evaluate the proposal, and the beam time allocation committee.

Notice to Users:

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (SC), which is the primary sponsor of APS, requires that a limited set of information relating to your user project/experiment be transmitted to SC at the conclusion of the current fiscal year. A subset of this information, including your name, institutional affiliation(s), and project title(s), will be publicly disseminated as part of an SC user facility user projects/experiments database on the SC website, http://science.osti.gov, after the conclusion of the fiscal year. For proprietary projects, SC requests that the user provide a project title that is suitable for public dissemination.

The scores of unallocated proposals are "aged" or improved at each cycle as part of the allocation process. If a proposal was not allocated time in the previous cycle, its score is improved by 0.2. This is done for a maximum of two cycles, for a maximum improvement of 0.4. The score resets to the original value after an allocation of beam time.

A user may appeal the outcome of a review score. The user initiates the appeal by contacting the User Office. The Deputy Associate Laboratory Directory (ALD) for the APS will determine the action to be taken to resolve the appeal. The Deputy ALD may, at his discretion, request a re-review; all review comments will be provided to the user. An appeal does not guarantee a change in score or allocation. The proposal remains active after an appeal.

New General User-Regular and Partner User Proposals and experiment time requests (ETRs) on existing General User-Regular and Partner User Proposals are generally accepted three times a year; see calendar.

A new experiment time request (ETR) must be submitted for each cycle in which the user wants time. Allocation is competitive for each cycle. If an ETR does not get time in a given cycle and the proposal is still "active" with remaining shifts, do not submit a new proposal to request time again. Simply submit a new ETR in the next cycle on the same proposal. A proposal can have multiple ETRs.

Macromolecular crystallography (MX) work has its own proposal type (General User-Macromolecular Crystallography). New MX proposals and requests for experiment time on existing active MX proposals are accepted during a standard proposal call (typically in March, July, and October) and on a rolling basis during an active run cycle.

The principal investigator (PI) is the member of the team who receives all official communication about the proposal throughout its lifetime. We strongly encourage the PI to submit the proposal on behalf of the experimental team.

• General User-Regular proposal template
• General User-Macromolecular Crystallography proposal template (coming soon)

See Proposal Types page for the lifetime of your specific proposal type.

A limited number of General User-Regular Proposals may justify reliable, predictable access over several cycles (up to two years) on a specific beamline (or several beamlines). These proposals are candidates for project status, under which a fixed amount of beam time is allocated in advance for more than one cycle. A proposal requesting project status must specify the beamline (or beamlines) where the work will be performed and justify the need for that location. The proposer must also justify why the goals of the proposal cannot be achieved effectively or efficiently under a standard General User-Regular Proposal.

The justification for project status is a critical component of the proposal. Additional levels of review apply, and this status is granted very sparingly.

The expectation is that users will publish their results in the open literature. Users who do not plan to publish must pay for proprietary beam time.

Calls for Rapid Access Proposals will be opened outside of the standard proposal submission timeline (i.e., after a standard proposal call deadline). If the beamline considers the proposed experiment acceptable and beam time is available that cycle, staff will contact the principal investigator (PI) to schedule the experiment. Rapid Access Proposals are only valid for one cycle.

When time is needed on two different beamlines in one cycle (e.g., different techniques on same sample), create two experiment time requests (ETRs), each with a different first-choice beamline. Be sure to explain in the proposal why work on both beamlines is needed.

Proposals are peer-reviewed and scored. Time is allocated on the basis of scores and feasibility.

Beam time at the APS is allocated in shifts of 8 hours.