Frequently Asked Questions

⍰ General

  • ReMade@ARI supports and coordinates your free access to a choice of over 50 European research infrastructures through one submission process.
  • ReMade@ARI provides you with free scientific support and training, no matter your level of expertise or experience
  • ReMade@ARI provides you with financial support for travel and accommodation when visiting our facilities.
  • The Circular Economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended, reducing waste to a minimum. Materials are then kept within the economy wherever possible thanks to recycling. These can be productively used again and again, thereby creating further value.
  • ReMade@ARI is funded by the European Commission and is committed to supporting their Action Plan through the development of innovative, sustainable materials by providing scientists with analytical tools to explore the properties and structure of materials right down to atomic resolution. Read more about our mission here.
  • We have 3 Access Routes through which you can apply to access our research infrastructures:
    • Standard Access – for academic researchers and industry
    • SME Access – for small and medium size enterprises
    • IND Access – for any company of any size in collaboration with a knowledge provider.
  • To find out more about our Access Routes, go to our User Access Guidelines and scroll to the bottom to consult our comparison table to decide which one is right for you.
  • To find out when each Access Route is open, consult our Calls Schedule to ensure you apply in plenty of time!

It is strongly recommended that you apply for at least 2 techniques in your proposal. One technique is accepted but it may not be prioritised, depending on how many applications are received. All techniques are described in full in our Catalogue and the full step by step process is outlined in our User Access Guidelines.

You are only eligible to access a research infrastructure if the PI and the majority (over 50%) of the team work in a country other than the country where you have applied to do your research, to be sure you are eligible for trans-national access and funding. The only exceptions to this rule are applications to access international organisations like ESRF and CERIC-ERIC.

⍰ Pre-proposal

If you have a research project, but you are not sure how to go about completing a full proposal, you can submit an informal pre-proposal by answering a few questions to get scientific advice from our Smart Science Cluster and Expert Network on how to proceed. You can also submit a pre-proposal if you are unsure which technique or facility to select in the portal.

A pre-proposal is not a pre-requisite to submitting a full proposal but we do highly recommend that you submit a pre-proposal, even if you feel your full proposal is already well developed. Our experts can help ensure you and your team are eligible, have picked the appropriate techniques and facilities, and that your application has everything needed to be successful. Although this process does not guarantee approval of your application, proposals submitted using this option have a very high success rate.

A pre-proposal can be submitted all year round, except for the last 2 weeks before a Call is due to close. If you wish to receive advice in time to submit a full proposal for the Call that is currently open, you should consider submitting a pre-proposal well before the closing date of the current Call. This allows us to review your project and provide you with relevant advice in a timely manner, in order for you to draft and submit a full proposal before the closing date.

⍰ Portal & Proposal

Your user profile is filled in when you create an account to access the application portal. It is an integral part of the application process and is reviewed internally as part of the overall review process to understand the capabilities of the PI and the team to be able to complete the research project. The User Profile includes the following which should all be completed before submission:

    • name
    • affiliation
    • country of residence
    • a short biography
    • publications (add to biography if not found in searchable database)
    • career stage
    • specialisation

Yes, you do have to use the Project Description template. The Project Description allows us to review in more detail how you intend to carry out your research. The template must be used so that all applications can be reviewed using the same set of criteria. Any applicants who have submitted but not used the template, will be asked to resubmit the file in the correct template in pdf format. The template can be found here.

If you have been working with a staff member(s) at one or more of our facilities prior to proposal submission, including members of the Smart Science Cluster, they should not be added as team members to proposals. There is a field in the proposal form itself to add the names of staff members you have been working with, and these staff should be mentioned here.

This does not mean that your proposal has been rejected. It simply means that your project is not feasible/eligible at that particular facility. If this is the case, a new facility should have been added to your proposal and the feasibility of your project at this new facility is under review. It may be that multiple facilities are checked for feasibility, and possibly cancelled, before the right facility is finally selected and approved for feasibility.

This means your colleague has not yet created an account in ARIA. Please ask them to do so by going to apply.remade-project.eu to register. You can then search for them again in step 4 “add team” and add them.

Your team member does have an ARIA account, as you were able to select their name when submitting your proposal. However, it means that they have not authorized the addition of their name to your proposal. If this is the case, please contact them and ask them to authorize their participation through the automated email they would have received via the ARIA portal requesting authorisation. If your team member cannot find the email, please contact us at admin@remade-project.eu and we will help add your team member.

⍰ After submission

  • Once you have submitted an application, it will first be reviewed internally for eligibility and choice of facility/technique. If there are any concerns at this stage, the main applicant will be contacted shortly after submission for clarification. Your facility selection may remain the same or it may be changed due to scientific considerations or available instruments and/or time.
  • Your application will then be reviewed by the chosen facilities for feasibility. Again, the main applicant may be contacted at this stage for further clarification if any part of the research project is unclear.
  • If your research is deemed feasible, it will then be sent for external scientific review and grading.
  • All feasible proposals receiving a scientific grade will then be reviewed and approved or rejected.

From the day the Call closes to applicants receiving notification of approval or rejection is approximately 17-18 weeks. For example, if you submit an application for the spring Call, which closes early April, you can expect to receive an answer by the end of June/early July. If you submit an application for the autumn Call, which closes early October, you can expect to receive an answer by the end of December/early January.

Once the application review process is complete, the chosen facility/ies will contact the main applicant and advise how to register in their system and discussions will begin on scheduling your experiment. Access should begin within 6 months of acceptance, depending on the type of access required. Depending on the technique chosen, facilities may offer agile access in a shorter time.

Comments from our external reviewers are available on request. Send an email to admin@remade-project.eu with your Proposal ID (PID) and these can be provided.

All applicants are welcome to resubmit to future Calls, but please consider taking advantage of our network of scientific support beforehand to help you improve your proposal before resubmission. Our Smart Science Cluster takes the time to review rejected proposals, even if the pre-proposal option was not used, and sends recommendations to the main applicant for possible improvements in case of resubmission. Send us an email at sciencesupport@remade-project.eu and we can discuss your resubmission.

⍰ Training

Users can benefit from training in different formats:

    • Recordings of our monthly webinars can be found on our YouTube channel. Upcoming webinars can be found on our website.
    • If you need advice from an expert on a particular topic, or one-to-one training e.g. on a particular technique in view of preparing a proposal, on data analysis for an accepted proposal, contact our team at training@remade-project.eu and we will provide you with all the help and advice you need.

⍰ Financial support & reimbursement

Reimbursement is made after each visit has been completed (you may have one or multiple visits per proposal). Once access has taken place, the facility will report the access in the ARIA portal through which the application was submitted. Once the facility has reported access, the main applicant will receive an email notification to complete the User Feedback Form in the portal. Once the User Feedback Form is submitted, the reimbursement form for financial assistance can be submitted together with invoices and receipts to us at reimbursement@remade-project.eu.

A maximum of two researchers are entitled to reimbursement of travel and accommodation costs for each access visit. These two researchers must be identified on the User Feedback Form.

Yes, users can be reimbursed even if their name was not on the original proposal submitted. However, their name must be added to the proposal after submission, preferably before access takes place. In order to do this:

    • All visiting users should go to the ARIA portal and create an account https://apply.remade-project.eu/
    • The main applicant must log in to ARIA and select the proposal from their Dashboard, search for each user in the field “Add Team Member” and add them.
    • Each new team member will receive an authorisation request by email to be added to the proposal, which they should confirm.

Access and visiting team members will then be confirmed by the facility in the ARIA portal.

An automated email will then be sent to the main applicant asking them to complete the User Feedback Form. Once this is complete, the reimbursement form can be sent together with invoices and receipts to reimbursement@remade-project.eu.

Reimbursement is normally requested once ALL visits to a specific facility have been completed and the User Feedback Form in the ARIA portal has been submitted by the Main Applicant of the proposal. However, in exceptional cases, the Main Applicant may request reimbursement in between physical visits to the same facility by sending an email to reimbursement@remade-project.eu with related information.