Peer-review committees and proposals evaluation

Peer-review committees

Committees members are nominated for a two years renewable period. Scientific Committee members can be invited to take part to a peer-review committee.

Each committee is formed with a sufficient number of  members to cover the full range of subfield of the research area.

Physical meetings take place twice a year: second half of November and April.

 

At the end of every meeting, each committee chair provide a report adressed to SOLEIL Direction and the Scientific Committee.

This report contains:

- observations on the quality and objectives of proposals,

- notification of hot topics,

- recommandations on possible improvements for either beamlines or beamtime allocation method.

 

Peer-review committee 1: Diluted matter

Peer-review committee 2: Electronic and magnatic property of matter - Surfaces and Interfaces

Peer-review committee 3: Matter and material properties: Structure, Organisation, Characterisation, Elaboration

Peer-review committee 4: Chemistry and Physico-chemistry - In situ reactivity - Soft matter

Peer-review committee 5: Biology - Health

Peer-review committee 6: Ancient materials - Environment and Earth

 

 

Proposals evaluation

Technical feasability and security group validation

Before peer-review committees meetings, beamlines managers provide their assessment on the consistency of the beamline choice and the technical feasability of the proposal.

If a proposal is considered not technicaly feasable by the beamline manager, she/he advise to refuse beamtime for the proposal.The main proposer might be contacted by the beamline team to find possible improvements.

 

At the same time, SOLEIL security group provide their evaluation of the proposal.

As much as possible, they suggest some improvements to make the proposal suitable in case of security failure. But if it is not possible, the proposal is rejected.

 

These informations are conveyed to committees.

 

Proposals ranking

Committees members rank proposals on the basis of their scientific excellence after beeing informed about their technical feasability.

 

Every proposal is ranked using the following scoring system, and an internal ranking is performed between each grade :

Grades 9 to 8: Excellent project to which time must be absolutely allocated.

Grades 7 to 6: Project which must be accepted due to its scientific quality or to an ambitious instrumental development.

Grades 5 to 4: Project which can be accepted if enough time is available.

Grades 3 to 2: Project which must not be accepted due to an insufficient scientific quality or to a problem in the instrumental method.

Grade 1: Eliminatory note due to failure in one of the critical criteria.

 

Rating criteria are detailled below, absence of any of the first 4 categories is eliminatory:

1. Scientific excellence

2. Capacity of the team: expertise to perform experiment / to analyse data / publications

3. Innovative character

4. Good use of SR beamline

5. Clear presentation of the proposal, and:

- Failure to submit an experimental report without good reason (illness, late scheduling of experiment….) means rejection of the proposal.

- Publication, for a specific project or sub project (BAG) is expected within 2 years of the first experiment. Failure to publish after this period means rejection of a continuation project unless detailed experimental report explains, to the satisfaction of PRC, why publication was not possible.

 

Results

After peer-review committees meetings, the Main proposer of the proposals is informed of SOLEIL Scientific Direction decision.

If the proposal is accepted, the Main proposer is notified by email of the number of shifts allocated to carry out the experiment.

If the proposal is declined, the Main proposer is notified by email of the result and received a report detailling the reason of the rejection.

 

Results are disclosed to users as soon as possible after committees meetings:

- Around the 15th of December for the call of September

- Around the 15th of May for the call of February