HYDRALAB-III - FP6 integrated infrastructure initiative

Access Rules and Procedures

The following is a summary of the rules, conditions and eligibility governing visits to the research infrastructures (RI’s), participating in HYDRALAB, funded under the research infrastructure action of the FP6 programme: Structuring the European Research Area.

PlEASE NOTE: This summary is a digest made by HYDRALAB of the full contract with the Commission, bringing out just those points which are relevant to potential users of the Infrastructures. It has no legal significance, and in any dispute the terms of the full contract take precedence (which can be inspected by visiting researchers or at internet-site: http://www.cordis.lu/fp6/infrastructures.htm).

Summary

1. The Infrastructure has agreed to provide access for eligible researchers ("Users”) to its large installations.
2. Access to the installations is provided free of charge to the Users and includes all infrastructural, logistical, technical and scientific support (including training) that is normally provided to external users of the installations.
3. Travel and subsistence expenses of all users within an eligible team (see article 4), irrespective of their nationality, will be reimbursed according to the normal internal rules and procedures of the Infrastructure. This covers international travel from the User's institution to the Infrastructure for each period of occupancy of the installation or for a meeting, and a fixed daily subsistence rate for each day of occupancy of the installation (including weekends and public holidays). Exceptions to these rules need prior confirmation in writing by the Infrastructure.
   Travel and subsistence will also be reimbursed on the same basis to Users when they attend user meetings with the prior written agreement of the Infrastructure.
   Receipts of tickets for travel must be attached to claims, which will be made on the Infrastructure's standard Travel Claim forms. The claims for daily subsistence must be made on the same forms at the daily rate applicable at the time. Claims will be reimbursed in Euro (€) or the local currency of the Infrastructure, using the exchange rate operating at the date of the claim where necessary.
4. Only research teams of which the majority of researchers, and the team leader, is conducting their research in an Eligible State*, not being the country where the Infrastructure is situated, are eligible to benefit. The term "research team" means a group of one or more researchers preferably not all coming from the same country. The team leader and the majority of the team are from eligible countries, except the country where the Infrastructure is situated. National research teams conducting their research in the country of the Infrastructure are not eligible. Researchers from third countries and from the country where the Infrastructure is situated may participate in a project. All Users will get the same financial support. Only research teams that are entitled to publish the results of their work in the Infrastructure in the open literature are eligible to benefit. Proprietary research shall not be supported, although an exception can be made for SME’s.
5. The EC-supported Access programme is intended to finance primarily short visits  to the installations (up to a three months, unless the EC explicitly gives permission for a longer period).
6. Proposals are selected on the basis of scientific merit through an independent peer review procedure by an international User Selection Panel. This selection panel is acting for all HYDRALAB partners on the basis of jointly agreed common selection rules (see HYDRALAB user selection rules).
   Priority will be given to User Groups who have not previously used the installations and User Groups who are working in countries where no such installations exist. Successful proposals will not normally commence occupancy of the installation earlier than three months after the closing date of applications, to allow time for the review procedure and the scheduling of the installations.
7. The Infrastructure shall, on a royalty-free basis, grant to Users non-exclusive licences and user rights concerning Foreground Information to the extent necessary for the execution of their own research and development work. Foreground Information means all information generated by the Infrastructure, or a third party working for it, in the performance of the project.
8. The User Group should draft a data storage plan prior to the experiments. This plan will explain in detail how the data will be stored in such a way that researchers outside the user group can make use of it. The experiments can only start after the written approval of the plan by the Infrastructure.
   Users must provide a written report, conforming with rules specified by the Commission, at the end of their visit (1 page summary report and description of highlights of project results). These reports will be submitted by the Infrastructure to the Commission as annual or final reports, and may be published by the Commission. The last payment of travel and subsistence costs will only be due after receipt of these reports.A data report or descriptive report, including experimental set-up, programme of experiments, the (summary of the) data collected (if appropriate) within the project and detailed explanation of data storage, must be submitted to the Infrastructure before publication. The analysis of the results of the research must be published on the HYDRALAB webpage (executive summary) as well as in the open literature, which is subjected to a peer review. The time schedule regarding a data report and first publication will be agreed upon between the User Group and the Infrastructure, before the Access period starts.
9. The knowledge and all data resulting from use of the installations under this programme shall, in principle, be the property of the Community. The research group will have the first right of publication within a period of two years after the last experiment. All collected data, publications and reports must be send by the research group to the facility manager of the Infrastructure and should be made available to any European researcher on their request, but not before two years after the last experiment. The co-operation of the User Group is obligatory if the Infrastructure takes the initiative to prepare a joint publication.
   If the User Group fails to publish the results within two years after the last experiment, the Infrastructure will ensure that the knowledge is disseminated in accordance with article II 34.2 of Annex II to the HYDRALAB contract.
   Users are strongly encouraged to publish the results of their research as many times as possible in the open literature. Manuscripts must be submitted to the Infrastructure for approval in sufficient time that changes can be made prior to publication. Such changes will normally only be to the form of acknowledgements, authorships, etc.
   Users must acknowledge in their publications that their work was financially supported by the European Community’s Sixth Framework Programme.
10. At the end of their occupancy of the Infrastructure, all Users shall sign a record of presence at the Infrastructure, giving their nationality, their place of work, and the duration of access to the Infrastructure.
11. Meetings of the Users will be organised at the Infrastructure prior to the access period to help making the access project a success. In exceptional cases such meeting can be organised after the access period, if deemed necessary by the provider to fulfil the providers obligations. A joint meeting of representatives of each access project of all HYDRALAB partners with an access contract will be organised to encourage further scientific collaboration. Travel and subsistence of Users attending these meetings will be reimbursed on the basis given in Article 3. This will be combined with a HYDRALAB meeting.
12. Users shall abide by the normal working practices, working hours, and health and safety regulations of the Infrastructure while present on the site.
13. The Infrastructure shall incur no liability in respect of any claim that may arise from the use of its Infrastructure under this contract. The presence of Users in the Infrastructure occur at their own risk. Neither the personnel of the Infrastructure nor the Infrastructure itself accept liability for the damage or loss of any instruments, apparatus and test equipment of the Users whether or not such damage or loss was caused directly or indirectly by their negligence.

*(Eligible States are menber States of the European Communitiy and Associated States)

User Selection Procedure

The Infrastructures (facility providers), participating in HYDRALAB, have agreed to use one common User Selection Procedure. This procedure is used by a User Selection Panel (USP) consisting of five to eight members, a minority coming from the Infrastructures for which the panel is convening and a majority selected from a list of experts in the fields covered by the Facilities of HYDRALAB, not related to the particular facility. This list of experts will be updated regularly.

The independent experts for a particular USP will be selected in such a way as to insure that they have no involvement whatsoever with any of the proposals to be reviewed. A chairman of the panel should be elected unanimously by the panel members.

The User Groups for the various Infrastructures in the same field (e.g. Hydraulics, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics or Ship Dynamics and Ice Engineering) will be selected in one or more common sessions of a joint USP, thus achieving an optimal, co-ordinated, access for the various Infrastructures and User Groups. It is the intention to organise a joint User Selection Panel meeting after each deadline of a call for proposals. Only in rare cases in which the small number of proposals would not warrant a full day meeting of the panel, the USP may agree on not meeting in person. The selection will only then take place by E-mail.

The facility provider supports the potential User Groups while they improve their draft proposals to compensate their lack of experience with the Infrastructure or possible lack of experience in writing research proposals in English. This will be especially beneficial for first time users. The facility provider will stimulate the potential User Group to enlarge the number of female users. If two proposals have the same rating, the number of first time users and female users will determine the selection.

In the sessions of the USP all facilities for which proposals are reviewed will be represented by a facility manager and/or facility expert. The USP may discuss the possibility to shift a proposal to another facility within HYDRALAB, should this be considered advantageous for both User Group and Facilities involved.

For acceptance of a proposal a majority agreement of the USP-members is required as well as the confirmation of the relevant facility manager that the research can be performed in the specific installation. The facility manager on the panel from the facility relevant to a proposal will not vote on that proposal, but will only advise the panel.

In case of non-acceptance of the proposal, the proposer will be informed by a letter including a summary of comments made by the USP in order to revise the proposal (see selection criteria-sheet below). The proposal can be submitted again to the facility provider, unless the user selection panel has decided that the proposal had to be rejected unconditionally, or the drafted short list (see below) already exceeds the total amount of access available. The proposer will be informed accordingly.

The facility provider will distribute the revised proposal to the other USP-members for final evaluation.

The relevant facility manager will draft a summary report of the USP-meeting containing the conclusion for each proposal reviewed, to be approved by the chairman. A copy of this summary report will be sent to the HYDRALAB coordinator for monitoring purposes.

The User Selection Panel also drafts a short list of User Groups to be granted access, which the facility manager sends to the HYDRALAB-I3 consortium management.

Also the User Groups will then be informed.