Following a successful ‘statement of community need’ bid, EPSRC wishes to support a national Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) service.
EPSRC will support the facility with a five-year grant which will undergo a mid-term review at the two and a half to three-year stage.
The EPSRC convened a specification panel for each facility at which the statement of community need was used to develop these detailed facility requirements, which applicants are expected to meet.
1. Key requirements for the proposed facility
The core purpose of the STEM national facility should be primarily the provision of:
- a high-quality STEM facility enabling sub-angstrom imaging and associated spectroscopic techniques as a key capability
- high precision spectroscopic capability
- a STEM service that reaches beyond the capabilities of those available at an institutional level
- internationally leading energy resolution
- a service that maintains its capabilities by incorporating and developing next generation STEM techniques.
The facility should offer the ability to undertake experiments:
over a wide range of controlled temperature and magnetic field conditions
with in-situ sample stimulation (for example, optical, electrical).
Instrumentation and technical capability
The instrument specification should be internationally leading and should demonstrably match the needs of the future UK research landscape.
To provide researchers with an appropriate level of service, the core facility must offer the following technical capabilities, with specifications that are competitive with the international state of the art:
- monochromation
- STEM probe abberation correction
- an electron energy loss spectrometer capable of meV energy resolution and high speed, low noise operation
- variable acceleration voltages (for example, 30-200 kEV)
controllable temperature down to liquid helium levels and including high temperature capabilities
- state of the art detector technologies for high speed, low noise imaging, ‘4D STEM’ techniques and spectroscopy
- a range of sample holders offering capabilities to facilitate experiments with controllable sample temperatures down to liquid helium levels and up to high temperatures.
Desirable capabilities:
- simultaneous energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) spectrum acquisition
- optical and/or electrical sample stimulation and spectroscopy
- controllable magnetic field at sample including low or zero field.
Equipment location
Applicants should demonstrate how the building housing the facility meets manufacturer’s recommended technical specifications.
Applicants should demonstrate that the facility and its site are easily accessed and clarify how they would support user needs in an equitable manner to provide a positive user experience.
Users of the STEM facility require access to appropriate software to analyse their results offsite and should be offered remote access offline post acquisition.
Technical, scientific, and training support for users
It is expected by EPSRC that all users will have access to expert advice including but not limited to:
- training provision in equipment use in accordance with their needs to include:
- face-to-face training
- support by email
- a process via which users can raise a request, complaint or issue about any aspect of the service, and a procedure for resolution
- site safety training at levels relevant to the users
- experimental design and feasibility
- data interpretation and advice regarding results
- sample preparation and storage.
Applicants are expected to provide details of user training provision, including the expertise and experience of those involved in training for the different levels of users.
This should take into account the needs of different user groups, for example:
- students
- academic researchers
- private sector customers
- researchers in or outside the host organisation
- new users
- experienced users.
This should include how the facility will engage with future generations of researchers, including EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training.
It is expected by EPSRC that all users will have access to expert advice including but not limited to:
- training provision in equipment use in accordance with their needs to include:
- face-to-face training
- support by email
- a process via which users can raise a request, complaint or issue about any aspect of the service, and a procedure for resolution
- site safety training at levels relevant to the users
- experimental design and feasibility
- data interpretation and advice regarding results.
Applicants should detail how they can support sample preparation offsite. Including how users will be supported to prepare, store and transport samples to the site when utilising the facility.
Access to appropriate:
- sample preparation
- sample storage and cleaning (specifically, oxygen free storage)
- should be provided.
Desirable additionality:
- onsite sample preparation facilities.
Remote access and web interface
EPSRC expects the facility proposed by the applicants to have a website that provides information on the facility and remote access to data, software for data processing and analysis and expert advice.
It is essential that users can perform basic analysis offsite, and therefore access to both software and training is required.
It is important that data is provided in an appropriate format to allow use of Open source software.
The facility should offer the capability for staff, on site, to run experiments in collaboration with virtual users. Remote user interaction with the facility is an important aspect.
2. Operational Considerations
Utilising equipment
The service must aim to utilise any equipment to a maximum extent, including the possibility of weekend and overnight access. It should consider different types of user and incorporate their needs.
Applicants should ensure the proposed facility offers a level of capacity and service that will match a reasonable estimation of demand from existing and future user communities.
Application document
The application document must detail and justify the following, referencing the planned cost sharing strategy (section four) as appropriate:
- expected proportion of facility use by user type:
- novice, experienced, expert
- from or outside host organisation(s)
- industrial
- application areas, for example EPSRC or other UKRI council remit.
- range of time durations for experiments on specific instruments, including a target for percentage utilisation (in working hours and 24/7 use, as appropriate) specifying time required for instrument maintenance and calibration
- a target for time from request for access to carrying out an experiment.
Engagement and publicity
Applicants should provide an engagement and outreach plan addressing how they will identify and reach:
- academic users
- non-academic users
- industrial users.
As part of their engagement plans, applicants should consider how they will develop a diverse and inclusive user base.
The facility should incorporate educational and training opportunities as part of their offering to the community (for example, summer schools).
Plans should be tailored to both existing and new users.
Diversification of the user base
The facility is expected to grow and diversify the user base (new universities, new research organisations, different research communities and new industrial users) over the lifetime of the grant. The application should provide details on:
- how the facility would assess the current and future size of the user base
- their communication and engagement strategy to reach new user communities
- what growth they expect to achieve in the user base.
Maintenance, upgrades, and servicing
EPSRC expects that the proposed facility will be sustainable and that the applicants will provide a plan providing details on how the capability of the facility and the related storage, preparatory and ancillary equipment would be maintained. This should include:
- details of agreements with the appropriate equipment vendors for upgrading and developing the equipment and facility
- basic details for routine service (daily, weekly, and monthly) and preventative maintenance (quarterly, annually) should be provided.
The application is expected to provide full justification and costing for capital expenditure of equipment upgrade and provide a timeline for capital investments over the duration of the grant to keep the facility at the cutting edge.
Application process
It is essential to EPSRC that the proposed facility can be accessed for the full period of the contract by students, post-doctoral researchers and academic researchers in the physical sciences, biological and engineering communities in the UK.
It is important to EPSRC that access to the proposed facility is fair and transparent for all potential users. EPSRC needs to understand how access to the proposed facility will be managed by the applicants. The applicant should describe the formal procedure for accepting and prioritising applications providing details of the quality assessment of the applications through all access routes.
The applicants should give details of any options for a percentage of the facility to be open to researchers in areas beyond EPSRC’s remit, for example, interdisciplinary researchers and business customers.
National and international research landscape
The application document should give details about how the facility will be positioned on the national and international research landscape, and how it would engage with the rest of the research community.
Usage statistics
The facility is expected to collect usage statistics in line with relevant General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and grant conditions.
The service must be able to report on individual users and record which equipment and services they used, including training courses, the number of experiments carried out, and whether they obtained the data they sought.
The facility should be able to exemplify for example:
- how the research community could or should be grown?
- what research communities and research fields are using the facility?
- how many are new users?
- to what extent is the facility pump-priming research grant funding?
The facility is encouraged to publish the statistics on its website. The usage data will be used to feed into annual reports and steering committee meetings should inform decision making regarding user engagement, service improvements and future provision.
Data management policy
The application must include a data management policy that is compliant with UKRI open data policy and extends beyond the duration of the grant.
The facility must have appropriate and robust systems and procedures to ensure data protection during collection, storage, processing, remote access and secure downloads of research data, including:
- intellectual property (IP) sensitive results
- confidential access to data
- secure downloads.
The facility should be able to provide users with advice on appropriate ways to publicly archive data produced and enabling open access.
Risk assessment and management
The application must include a risk assessment and a risk management strategy focused on achieving the highest productivity of the facility.
3. People and management arrangements
The service must meet the following management requirements:
Excellent team
The facilities must be led by an excellent team that is capable of:
- community building
- assessing community scientific needs
- managing the operational aspects of a facility to meet user and staff requirements
- have the confidence of the community as experts in STEM, or in their respective operational roles.
The team will need to work constructively with multiple stakeholders and funders. For grant purposes the application will have a named eligible principal investigator (PI) with other team members listed as co-investigators. Requested PI time should be fully justified with respect to duties to be performed.
Technical or operational director
There must be a nominated technical or operational director who will manage and lead the delivery of the service. This may or may not be the same person as the nominated-director (PI). The application must:
- clearly identify who will take these posts
- provide CVs
- provide evidence of their ability to accomplish their roles.
Governance structure
The governance structure should include:
- a management board (MB), including:
- the facility director
- the technical or operational director
- others as appropriate
- an independent steering committee (SC) that reflects the user community.
The independent steering committee should include external advisors, international representation, and industry representation. The process for identifying and approving steering committee membership should be defined. A member of EPSRC must also form part of the steering committee.
The panel will discuss any specific governance requirements for this facility that should be included in the call and monitored for the subsequent grant. An organogram of the proposed structure should be included. The remit of each such body and their membership (and duration of office) are to be published on the facility webpage. The proposed membership at the start of the grant should be stated in the application
An organogram of the proposed structure should be included. The remit of each body and their membership (and duration in office) are to be published on the facility webpage. The proposed membership at the start of the grant should be stated in the application.
Support and development of professionals
The facility is expected to provide ongoing support and development for research technical professionals (RTPs) and post-doctoral research assistants (PDRAs) involved in the running of the facility which UKRI recognize as being core to the successful running of the facility.
Leadership
EPSRC expects the service to take a leadership role in the physical sciences, life sciences and engineering communities. Leadership in this context might involve:
- uniqueness of service (no equivalent elsewhere internationally)
- outreach
- demonstrating value of service to community (need and usage)
- owned by the users.
Future roadmaps
EPSRC expects the facility to take a leadership role in the community supporting the development of future roadmaps or strategy and to work with other bodies in the community to facilitate this as a key contributor. The facility should retain knowledge of the international landscape, where they sit within it, and how this feeds into the facility strategy.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level agreements (SLAs)
The expectation of EPSRC is that as a result of this opportunity any grant awarded will include KPIs and SLAs that the facility will aspire to meet. These may include but are not limited to those given as standard. The following KPIs and SLAs could be considered:
- number of users, for example, expert and non-expert, return or new
- department and university profile of users and number of industry users
- number of samples, with broad indication of time
- percentage usage of different instruments, in working hours and 24/7, as appropriate
user satisfaction average scores
- number of complaints
- list of papers and highlights
- grant applications and success rate
- cost recovery via grants.
Feedback and complaints
EPSRC expects that a proposed facility will have a process in place for complaints and monitoring of user satisfaction.
The applicants should give an explanation and provide details of the proposed feedback processes and how feedback will be used to implement improvements.
The facility should also describe the escalation procedure for user complaints, indicating who to contact in specific cases, with this clearly set out on the facility webpage.
4. Charging models and sustainability
EPSRC is committed to providing cost effective services. The application must include a realistic approach to cost recovery. EPSRC expects applicants to identify non-UKRI sources of funding to underwrite the cost-recovery plan in the event of targets not being met which should be documented in letters of support.
The proposal should include details of the charging model, and how it would operate for different types of user and different access routes. A per hour or per day or per sample rate should be specified as appropriate, indicating what is included in the rate, for example, running costs and staff costs. Specifically it should include:
- the definition of the different charging-categories in the charging models
- consideration of how charged usage will dovetail with free-at-the-point of access facility usage
- how this may affect prioritisation of experiments.
Applicants should describe how different access routes will be managed to protect the proposed balance of different users as detailed in operational requirements. Any risks to usage of the service need to be mitigated.
If, following peer review, EPSRC considers that insufficient effort has been made to detail a cost-effective facility it may, in discussion with the PI, alter the profile of a successful grant to return maximum value to UK research users.
In line with other NRFs EPSRC will not fund the entirety of the facility. By year five the EPSRC’s direct support of the recurrent (resource) costs for the facility operation should have been reduced as cost recovery increases.
For the avoidance of doubt, in this context, recurrent costs mean operational expenditure that is not equipment spend. This target must not preclude proof-of-principle and first-time usage.
Applicants may wish to propose multiple targets and are welcome to describe how further savings might be made and used to fund enhanced facility activities and capabilities. These should be reflected in the proposed grant payment profile that will need to be provided as part of the grant application. An example is shown below.
| Year |
EPSRC contribution to recurrent costs |
Cost recovery |
| 1 |
80% |
20% |
| 2 |
80% |
20% |
| 3 |
70% |
30% |
| 4 |
60% |
40% |
| 5 |
50% |
50% |
Progress towards increased sustainability will form a key KPI of the successful grant and will be reviewed by the independent steering committee and at the mid-term review.
5. Host organisation support
The facilities should be run for the benefit of the national research community. EPSRC is therefore paying the equipment costs at 100% full economic cost (FEC). However, it is important that the host organisations also commit to fully supporting the bids, as detailed in the host organisation letters. As a minimum, they must commit to:
- relinquishing rights to university-owned equipment for external users at the levels detailed in the application
- underwriting the meeting of cost-recovery targets, in order to provide staff and other resource costs if targets are not met
- providing appropriate support and development opportunities for all staff, including instrument scientists and research technical professionals (RTPs) associated with the operation of the facilities
- long term (beyond the length of the grant) data storage and retrieval facilities in line with UKRI data policies
- supporting the facilities to develop and implement policies that provide safe, secure and legal access for external users to the facilities
- supporting the facilities in the creation and administration of the website.
Funding available
Applicants are required to contact EPSRC regarding their intent to submit a proposal.
EPSRC is awarding up to £3.9 million of resource funding for the STEM facility.
Applicants should request different levels of capital investment.
One level should be based on the capital required to deliver the core provision for the facility.
Other levels of capital request should detail the additional capital investment required to provide enhanced levels of service.
Applicants should provide details of the resources required for each of the levels of capital investment (up to the maximum value of £4 million). Applicants must show how the equipment and resources requested meet the core and enhanced capability requirements.
The final capital allocation will be based on recommendations from the panel and negotiations with EPSRC.
Applicants are advised to speak to their research office for support in completing their resource costings.
Investigator time and public engagement costs should be requested at 80% FEC.
Equipment costs should be requested at 100% FEC and recorded in Je-S under the ‘equipment’ heading.
All other resource costs are expected to relate to the running of the national facility and be recorded under the ‘exceptions’ heading. These costs should be requested at 100% FEC, but reduced to reflect the cost sharing target.
Applicants, as part of the grant application, must propose a grant payment profile that sets out the expected pattern of expenditure over the lifetime of the grant, The payment profile for the facility must reflect the cost recovery targets for the recurrent (resource) costs set out in the cost sharing, and the planned schedule for capital and equipment expenditure over the duration of a five-year grant.
EPSRC guidance for equipment funding.
Grant Additional Conditions can be found in Additional information.
