Our 18th proposal round closed last night, with 258 proposals across 14 cold- and thermal-neutron instruments, and both Chemical- and Bio-Deuteration at the National Deuteration Facility. Excluding existing approved programs and the mail-in system on ECHIDNA, 1571 beam days have been requested.
Including strong demand from the National Science Council of Taiwan, 37% of demand was from overseas (China, New Zealand, Japan, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Spain, Israel, Argentina, South Africa, the USA, and 8 other countries in Asia and Europe). 47% of demand was from Australian universities and CSIRO, along with 16% from ANSTO itself.
These proposals will now go out for external review by referees, with the final recommendations on allocation of beam time, by the Program Advisory Committee in November 2016. Approved experiments will be run starting in January 2017. The next proposal round is now open, with a closing date of 15 March 2017.