Today, the Program Advisory Committee chaired by Prof. Anton Middelberg (University of Queensland), met to assess the scientific merit of beam-time and deuteration proposals submitted for time between October and December 2011.
Prof. Keng Liang (National Chiao Tung University) joined the committee for the first time, representing the National Science Council of Taiwan. In general, the impression was that the quality of both proposals and external reviewing has continued to increase.
54 experiments were recommended for approval, with beam time allocations as follows: 35 days on Echidna, 46 days on Wombat, 68 days on Kowari, 49 days on Koala, and 52 days on Taipan.
The variation in time allocated is mainly due to existing commitments to program proposals, and in part to the existing backlog on the instruments from the present round.
No programs were recommended for approval in this round.
Due to the problems with OPAL's cold neutron source and with Quokka's detector (as reported below on 18 January, 30 May and 12 July 2011) and the resultant carryover of commitments, both Platypus and Quokka had been withdrawn from this proposal round, and the committee only considered proposals to the National Deuteration Facility and our 5 operational thermal-neutron instruments.
Feedback from this review, along with advice regarding beam-time allocations, should go out to users within two weeks.
Published: 11/08/2011