Proprietary Proposals

Proprietary beam time at the APS  is defined as work that will not be made available in the open literature. This time incurs an hourly fee and requires an active, funded user account. Contact useracct@aps.anl.gov for assistance.

Process

1. Set up a proprietary user agreement between the APS and your home institution (see more about user agreements).
2. Set up an advance-funded proprietary user account with the APS (see more about user accounts).
3. Identify the specific beam time to be considered proprietary.

The billing policy is described in detail in the APS Policy and Procedure for Identifying Proprietary Time, but the general principles are as follows:

• General users are charged for the entire beam time assigned to the proposal.
• Partner users can, during the course of an experiment, declare a portion of the time as proprietary. (Here "partner user" is defined broadly, i.e., including CAT members/staff.) A billing email is sent at the conclusion of the experiment, and the user has 2 business days to ask the APS to amend the record.

Reporting

Even though it may not be appropriate to publish the research, users are expected to document the impact of the work in a report to the APS. Details are given in the APS Policy and Procedure for the Evaluation of Unpublished Research.