The scientific peer-review of a submitted proposal

The assessment of technical feasibility / availability of resources by the service providers

Reflection on the outcomes of the access immediately after it has taken place. This is performed by both the visiting user, and by the service provider.

Selects reviewers, oversees the scientific review and chooses to accept/reject a proposal informed by the scientific review. Also provides a point of contact for the applicant about their proposal.

The service offered to users displayed to them in the catalogue. A service/technology can refer to one machine/method or multiple machines/methods (e.g. a pipeline or a group of related machines) used to provide the service.

Thematic grouping of similar service/technologies.

A physical machine or a method used to provide the service/technology.

The type of task performed by a machine/method e.g. Imaging, data analysis.

The use of a service/technology by a user. Access may be remote i.e. a user sends in a sample to be analysed, or physical (sometimes referred to as a visit) i.e. a user travels to another institute to use a machine in that institute.

A standardised measure of access (usually days) which is connected to an associated cost (Access cost).

Cost of consumables and travel/accommodation for the applicant to visit.

Real cost of the access being offered to users and is the User cost plus cost of support personnel and administration to deliver the access service.

Cost of the infrastructure provided which includes the Access cost plus the cost of maintaining and running the facility.

Those persons listed as administrators of a service/technology.

The organisation which is home to machines/methods. In the case of Instruct it is one of our Instruct centres (called ‘nodes’ in other RI).