ISIS for business

The ISIS Collaborative R&D programme is specifically designed to make it simple for industry to work with ISIS. Its primary goal is to expand industrial use of the facility while maximising the economic impact delivered to both participating companies and the UK.

Through the programme, companies form a close industry–ISIS partnership focused on a clearly defined programme of industrially relevant research. ISIS beam time is provided as free at the point of use to the collaboration, significantly reducing barriers to access and enabling research to move forward quickly.

• Beam time is free at point of use
• Beam time may be obtained very quickly
• Criteria for doing the experiment will be its potential economic benefit to the UK
• The results remain confidential during the period of the experiment and the subsequent data analysis.
• For each experimental proposal, a company must demonstrate it has deployed in-kind matching funding to the cost of the ISIS beam time supplied

An important requirement of the scheme is for the industrial partner to estimate the potential economic benefits to themselves and the UK, and to provide reports regarding progress towards these targets.

The applicants must provide a short account of the project which may be used by ISIS and STFC when reporting the impacts of their work to the UK government and the wider public. (This account need not contain any proprietary information.)

We welcome applications to join the ISIS Collaborative R&D programme from:

• a single company, or group of companies
• a company, or companies, with an academic partner or partners.

Participants in the programme will sign a Collaborative Research Agreement (CRA) with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) which will cover details of confidentiality and the in-kind contributions provided by each side of the partnership.

To join the ISIS Collaborative R&D programme, please contact the Industrial Liaison Manager, Dr Christopher Frost.

ICR&D applications are judged by a small panel with appropriate expertise under strict confidentiality rules, and will be considered outside the normal academic peer-review process.

Applications are likely to be successful if the proposal is technically sound, the company has a UK manufacturing or research base, and the partnership has the potential to deliver benefit to the UK economy.

Initial discussions

Before writing an ICR&D proposal, please contact the Industrial Liaison Manager Dr Christoph​er Frost to discuss your proposal.

They can help you to decide on the most suitable instrument and the amount of time you will need, and assist in preparing the proposal.

Proposal

The proposed ICR&D research programme should be described. In particular it ​should explain why neutron measurements are required, and how the ISIS measurements will fit within the overall research programme.

If the measurements are required very urgently, this should be highlighted in this section.

In addition, you will also need to supply the following information:

• A brief description of your company (or consortium), and its activities in the UK, including the total employment, and the turnover within the UK.
• An estimate the potential economic benefit to both your company (or consortium) and the UK
• The in-kind contribution that your company (or consortium) will make to the project. This should be in the form of a simple table showing each in-kind contribution which can be in staff time spent on the project, or related equipment, samples or services. For a consortium, the table should include contributions from all partners and identify the roles of each partner.
• A simple time-line of key milestones for the programme.

Economic benefits
It is appreciated that measures of economic impact are difficult, and generally contingent upon the successful outcome of a programme of research.

However, in this section we ask the industrial partner to estimate the potential economic impact the proposed research might have on their company or the UK. Such impact may be expressed in a variety of measures including reduced costs of production, increased sales, jobs, etc. Since the impact is uncertain it is the order of magnitude of the impact that is needed.

It is also appreciated that such information is highly sensitive, and ISIS will not report this figure in such a way that it can be attributed to the proposers. However, this information and the associated monitoring information supplied during and post-project may be reported by ISIS as an aggregated figure across the whole programme. Where significant impacts are achieved, ISIS will request permission for information to be used in a case study.

Collaborative Research Agreement
Participants in the ICR&D scheme will sign a Collaborative Research Agreement (CRA) with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which will cover details of the in-kind contributions provided by each side of the partnership. The agreement may also include details on how IP is handled by the partnership.

Costs
An outline of the costs borne by each partner (industry, academia, ISIS) in undertaking the ICR&D should be given. Staff costs should be expressed at full economic cost (FEC). The total requested ISIS beam time should also be listed.

For an ICR&D Collaborative Research Agreement to be signed, the industrial partners must deliver an in-kind contribution at least equal to the total cost of the ISIS beam time supplied to the project.

It should be noted that no cash awards are provided under the ICR&D scheme, although travel and subsistence costs of participating academic partners will be met if requested in the proposal.

Safety
It is important that you give accurate information about the safety of the samples and the safety of the proposed experiment.

All ISIS experiments are required to complete an online Experiment Risk Assessment (ERA) before starting work to evaluate experiment and sample safety. Providing this information in advance will allow ISIS staff to ensure that your experiments can go ahead and be safe and successful. Successful proposers will be sent a link to the ERA system in advance of their experiment.

Failing to give correct safety information could delay the start of your experiments.

Submitting proposals
Proposals may be submitted at any time throughout the year to the ISIS Industrial Liaison Manager, Dr Christoph​er Frost.