Guest Facilities User Agreement

All ATLAS Facility Users must have an appointment at Argonne to work at the facility. In order for a non-Argonne person to perform research at ATLAS the Department of Energy requires that a Guest Facilities User Agreement be executed. The purpose of the User Agreement is to define administrative obligations such as safety, liability, ownership of property, and intellectual property rights. These rights and obligations vary based upon category of use. Categorization is based upon the dichotomy of non-proprietary vs. proprietary use of the accelerator facility. Almost all users of the facility are granted access for basic research and thus fall into the category of non-proprietary use. Non-proprietary users may fall into two groups, 1) those who participate in research as employees of an institution (almost everybody) or, 2) those representing themselves (possibly an emeritus professor with no institutional obligations or support). Users who participate as employees of another institution must secure their home institution's approval, indicated by an authorized signature, on the User Agreement.

The second major categorization is for the rare instances of proprietary use of the ATLAS facility. This requires a contractual agreement with the Laboratory and payment of costs for operating the machine. The User Agreement for proprietary users is very similar to the non-proprietary agreement. The primary differences involve ownership and rights in data and resultant intellectual property.

Argonne is the home of five designated National User Facilities, ATLAS, the APS (Advanced Photon Source), CNM (Center for Nanoscale Materials), the Electron Microscopy Center for Materials Research, and the Advanced Leadership Computing Facility. The Department of Energy has mandated we implement a new set of user agreements. Argonne is implementing these agreements. While there are few overlaps of users between the individual facilities, most of your home institutions have individuals from multiple departments using different facilities. Argonne's approach will be to have a single non-proprietary, proprietary, or both agreements executed at the institutional level with your home institution. This eliminates the need for every user from the same umbrella organization having to execute individual user agreements for each facility visited. The institutional User Agreements are effective for 5 years and may be renewed. The User Office of the Advanced Photon Source is coordinating this activity for Argonne and is processing all Guest Agreements.

Please verify if your home institution already has an executed current agreement in place with Argonne prior to your arrival at the Laboratory. You may do this by following the link to user agreements. If your home institution is listed please review the appropriate agreement; print and sign the user acknowledgement page (It is necessary for you as a user to be cognizant of your responsibilities and agree to these responsibilities as a condition of your User Appointment at Argonne) and return it to Barbara Weller. If you home institution is not listed please complete the User Agreement Questionnaire to initiate the process. This must be done for all participants in your experiment.

If you plan to come for an experiment, please notify Barbara Weller (630)252-4044; email address: [email protected] as soon as possible to allow time for your institution to sign off on the Guest Agreement.

Downloadable versions of the Guest Facilities User Agreement form is available below:

• Non-Proprietary User Agreement.pdf