Application for Transnational Access

The detailed eligibility and selection criteria are outlined below. The single infrastructures are described on the infrastructures page. Other usefull information is available about Collection dates and user times and Templates and checklists.

Eligibility Criteria

In order to be eligible, TNA proposals submitted by user groups must meet the following criteria:

  1. The user group leader and the majority of the users must work in a country other than the country where the installation is located. The country where the installation is located is listed in the list of ChETEC-INFRA TNA installations.
  2. The user group must be allowed to disseminate the results they have generated in their TNA project. If the user group is part of an SME (small or medium enterprise), this requirement can be waived.
  3. By EU regulation, ChETEC-INFRA has to limit the provision of access to user groups with the majority of users not working in an EU or associated country to 20% of overall access. This means that proposals from outside the EU and EU-associated countries are fully eligible, until this overall limit applying to all ChETEC-INFRA supported TNA proposals has been exhausted.
  4. If the user group leader can use national mechanisms to access ChETEC-INFRA telescopes (e.g. for some countries to access the NOT telescope), they should apply using these mechanisms and not for ChETEC-INFRA transnational access.

Selection Criteria and Procedures

  1. The selection of TNA proposals will be made based on
    1. the written scientific proposal and written experimental plan submitted by the user group through the access portal linked on the ChETEC-INFRA home page,
    2. the eligibility check performed by the ChETEC-INFRA TNA Coordinator,
    3. and the technical feasibility check performed by the TNA Manager of the installation applied for.
  2. The selection of the proposals will be performed by the ChETEC-INFRA User Selection Panel (USP). The USP is composed of international experts in the fields of nuclear astrophysics, at least half of them from institutions that are independent from the ChETEC-INFRA consortium.
  3. The sole selection criterion is scientific excellence, with priority being given to users who have not previously used the installation and who are working in countries where no equivalent infrastructure exists. The interdisciplinary aspect of scientific excellence will be underlined by encouraging the use of two or even three types of infrastructures (labs, telescopes, computers).  
  4. TNA users from inside and from outside the ChETEC-INFRA consortium that meet the eligibility and selection criteria set out in above are eligible. ChETEC-INFRA especially invites and warmly welcomes new scientific users from all institutions and countries!

Scoring Criteria

CategoryQuestionMax. number of Points
Scientific ExcellenceHow great is the scientific impact on nuclear astrophysics, the scientific relevance and the quality of the proposal?5
Does the proposal properly use the particular strengths of the the TNA infrastructure applied for?1
Is the proposal interdisciplinary in nature, i.e. does it use two or more of the three categories of infrastructures (telescopes, labs, computers)1
New UsersHas this user group not previously used this installation?1
Users from countries without relevant infrastructureIs the majority of the user group based in countries which do not host the type of infrastructure applied for here?1

Infrastructures and Transnational Access (TNA)