Getting Started
Access to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) user facilities is a two-fold process:
- The review and approval of the user's proposal
- An executed agreement between the user institution and UT-Battelle.
Prospective users should submit a proposal directly to the user facility of interest. [Details for proposal submission are contained on the individual user facilities website.] Acceptance of proposals depends on scientific merit, suitability of ORNL facilities for the proposed project, selection of an ORNL point of contact, and appropriateness of the work to DOE objectives. Once a proposal is approved, the specific operating procedures, time allotted for work, user costs (if any), and collaborative arrangements will be determined. Prior to the initiation of work at our user facilities, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) requires that we have in place standard agreements governing the use of the facility.
Upon proposal approval, the ORNL Partnerships Directorate begins the process to execute a user agreement with the user institution. This agreement, which can be proprietary or nonproprietary, stipulates terms and conditions, including disposition of intellectual property.
The User Agreement is a “master” agreement and establishes the general terms and conditions for work at any of our user facilities. Work at a particular facility is accomplished by execution of a facility-specific Appendix A which specifies not only the facility, but also the duration (generally 5 yrs) and the overall purpose. Additional projects at that facility may be performed under the executed facility-specific Appendix A upon programmatic approval of the proposal by the facility director and available scheduling. Multiple Appendix A’s may be executed to allow use of additional facilities. If costs are involved, project-specific Appendix As are executed.
All agreement documents must be signed by an official who is legally authorized to commit the organization to contracts. Typically an authorized individual may be found in the User Institution’s Sponsored Research, Research Administration, Legal, or Contracts organizations.
Types of Agreements: ORNL uses either a non-proprietary or proprietary agreement depending on the work output.
A non-proprietary agreement is used when 1) all tasks will be directed toward non-proprietary research that advances the state of the art in the user’s area of interest, rather than toward producing a commercial end result (e.g., a marketable product); 2) the user intends to publish the research results in the open scientific literature; and 3) the user does not require a proprietary level of protection for any of the output. The user may use proprietary data or software in the performance of the project, as long as all the project output is non-proprietary.
A proprietary agreement is used when any of the output or end result of the work is considered proprietary by the user and/or the User does not want the result disseminated to the public. Full cost recovery is required for proprietary work.
After the proposal is approved and the agreement is executed, the facility administrator schedules access. ORNL site- and facility-specific training are required.
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