Remote Access is offered by several of Lasers4EU labs in exceptional cases. Wherever possible, access projects are carried out by the host lab’s staff with no external user present in the lab. They supervise the experiments remotely.

Remote access can only be granted when the Principal Investigator and the host facility have reached an agreement on how to proceed. The projects will have to strictly respect the following rules:

• Remote Access must be based on a strong and auditable involvement of the user(s).
• The user(s) should be directly involved, usually on a daily basis, via video link, and must actively participate in the different steps and decisions during the experiment.
• Proofs of such involvement (e.g. minutes of the video discussions on the lab books) shall be kept for audit purposes. The remote users shall fill a form certifying the amount of remote access provided to them (available from the host facility).

You are invited to discuss remote access options with the following facilities: CEA-LIDYL, CLF, CLL, CLPU, CNRS-CELIA, CNRS-LOA, CNRS-LP3, CUSBO, FELIX, FERMI, GSI, HZDR-ELBE, ICFO, LENS, LLAMS, LLC, MBI, ULF-FORTH, VULRC.

Access Providing Infrastructures (APIs) that accept proposals at any time must be prepared to handle possible oversubscriptions, i.e. situations when too many positively evaluated proposals are aimed to a particular infrastructure for a given period of time. They must also be prepared to schedule approved proposals within a limited time period after evaluation. In general, the following rules should apply:

1. The APIs report to the Access Board three times a year on the progress of all access proposals that have been approved by the Access Selection Panel (ASP).

2. The scheduled access visit should take place no later than 20 months after the ASP decision.

3. When allocating the available beam time periods for the access visit, the API should take into account the available access budget (see footnote 1) and the average rate of incoming proposals. This may lead to the need to rank and locally schedule only a part of the proposals.

4. The ranking will be based primarily on the scientific excellence of the proposal. If several proposals of comparable quality are approved, priority will be given to new applicants.

5. Should the host API have difficulty in accommodating access visits despite compliance with the above rules, the applicant(s) will be notified immediately and the ‘excess proposals’ will be forwarded to the Access Board for further consideration. The host API will be required to provide written justification as to why it was unable to accommodate all access visits and the reasons for the selection. The Access Board is responsible for approving this selection. It is also responsible for making a final decision on the scheduling of the proposal, including possible rerouting to other host facilities within 3 months. Re-routing requires the agreement of both the applicants and the new host facility.

6. If re-routing is not possible, the application may either be rejected by the Access Board (see footnote 2) or placed on a “waiting list” from which the applicant may withdraw at any time. The waiting list should be visible to all host infrastructures and should be reviewed periodically by the Access Board.

7. Rejected proposals or those on the waiting list are open to be accommodated outside the EU access programme by any volunteering facility at any time.

Footnote 1: No further proposals may be accepted or scheduled once the maximum total access budget of the host facility has been reached (taking into account the sum of all completed and scheduled proposals).

Footnote 2: In rejecting proposals the Access Board acts on behalf of Lasers4EU consortium. It must ensure that rejection is ultimately based on financial constraints only. Board members coming from the original host facility may not participate in rejection decisions (“external” decision). Rejected applicants may appeal to the Management Board.