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

• September 1st 2025 at 17:00 CEST to have a pre-evaluation and the possibility to improve your proposal
• October 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 has begun 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.

Three offline beamlines will instead keep offering access:

• PRP@CERIC Inelastic Ultraviolet Scattering with fixed-energy sources (IUVS-Offline)
• Offline Synchrotron Infrared Source for Spectroscopy and Imaging – Chemistry & Life Science  (SISSI-Bio OFF-line)
• Czech Materials Science Beamline (MSB) at Elettra offers offline photoemission experiments with a dual-anode (Mg/Al) X-ray lamp as photon source. Most of the end-station facilities described on the website https://www.elettra.eu/lightsources/elettra/elettra-beamlines/msb/manuals.html remain available, please contact the local staff before submission.

JRC Nanobiotechnology Laboratory
The JRC Nanobiotechnology Laboratory in Ispra has been equipped with new instruments, available to CERIC users. Please check out the enhanced capabilities in protein charachterization, charachterization of materials and nanomaterials and surface analysis at the dedicated webpage: https://www.ceric-eric.eu/lab-instrument/jrc-nanobiotechnology-laboratory/

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 starting from Spring 2026 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

CERIC continues to offer access to the following instruments, available from 2025:

ATHOS Triple-Axis Spectrometer at Budapest Neutron Centre

TomoLab at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste

TeraFERMI at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste

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