The ISIS Collaborative Research and Development program (ICRD) provides a low risk, flexible access route for academia-industry applications for ISIS beamtime. Rather than submitting an ISIS proposal into the standard calls for proposals, ICRD users can submit their proposals at any time, and the proposals are reviewed immediately, with a much less competitive review process. If necessary, the ISIS beamtime can then be scheduled as early as one month after the proposal is submitted. This extra flexibility arises from the industrial partner filling out a brief questionnaire about the company’s involvement, and the potential benefit of the ISIS experiment – thereby the beamtime can be awarded on basis of economic benefit rather than purely on scientific excellence.
After an ICRD experiment, the resulting research can be published as is usually done for academic users, but if needed the participating company also has the option to “buy back” some of the beamtime in order to protect any confidential intellectual property arising from the experiment.
In addition to benefitting ISIS users, the ICRD program provides ISIS with information about the economic impact of its industrial research. This information allows ISIS to demonstrate to its funding bodies that the investment in ISIS contributes to economic growth in the UK. This is invaluable for ISIS to secure major funding programs to upgrade and enhance its capabilities (eg Endeavour, ISIS-II).
Catalysis Hub members are therefore encouraged to consider using ICRD for any ISIS beamtime proposal featuring industrial involvement. For example, if a member of the experimental team is a company employee, if the materials to be analysed are supplied by industry, or if an involved PhD student or post-doc is funded by industry.
For any questions about the ICRD access route, please contact graham.appleby@stfc.ac.uk. Further information can be found at https://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/Beamtime-ISIS-Collaborative-RD-Programme.aspx