CERIC call for proposals is now open! Need a lab? Use ours!

The Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium, CERIC-ERIC is calling for proposals for coordinated access to more than 60 instruments and support laboratories for research in all fields of materials, biomaterials and nanotechnology. The call is open to researchers from all over the world. In addition to the possibility of accessing several instruments through a single application, we offer support for mobility.

To apply, use the link "Submit a new CERIC proposal" in our Virtual Unified Office - VUO.

As usual, there will be two deadlines:

first deadline: 1 September 2025, (17:00 CET) – Get feedback & improve your proposal
second deadline: 1 October 2025, (17:00 CEST) – Final deadline (recommended for expert users)

What is new in this call?
Elettra 2.0 – Starting from 2 July 2025, the removal of Elettra and the installation of the new Elettra 2.0 machine have begun at the CERIC Italian Partner Facility. The new source will exhibit a major increase in the brilliance and coherence fraction of the photon beams. The Elettra 2.0 optics is based on our enhanced symmetric six bend achromat structure (S6BA-E) with a 12-fold symmetry and an emittance of 200 pm-rad at 2.4 GeV. The new structure also creates straight sections in the arcs, permitting the installation of additional insertion devices, thus increasing the number of beamlines. Existing beamlines are being upgraded, and new beamlines will be installed to take full advantage of the characteristics of Elettra 2.0. The new machine is scheduled for commissioning in the second half of 2026.

Hence, in the current call for proposals, access will not be offered to the beamlines located at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, including the Austrian SAXS beamline.

Three offline beamlines will instead keep offering access:

PRP@CERIC Inelastic Ultraviolet Scattering Offline laboratory (IUVS-Offline)
Offline Synchrotron Infrared Source for Spectroscopy and Imaging - Chemistry & Life Science (SISSI-Bio OFF-line)
Czech Materials Science Beamline (MSB) at Elettra offers offline photoemission experiments with a dual-anode (Mg/Al) X-ray lamp as photon source.

Most of the end-station facilities described on the CERIC website remain available. Please contact the local support staff before submitting your application to the following facilities:

JRC Nanobiotechnology Laboratory in Ispra has extended its equipment portfolio available to CERIC users. Please check out the enhanced capabilities in Separation and Characterisation of Nanomaterials and Protein Characterisation, Material Characterisation and Surface Analysis at the dedicated webpage.
Ruđer Bošković Institute – For maintenance reasons, the ion beam Croatian facility at the RBI will be partially operational and will be offering limited access starting from Spring 2026, only to the following instruments:

Dual Beam Irradiation Station (IRRA) - only single beam irradiation with lower energy ions provided by 1 MV TDT accelerator
Nuclear Microprobe and Detector Testing (Nmicro)- only ions provided by 1 MV TDT accelerator
Particle-Inducted X-ray Emission and Rutherford Backscattering (PIXE/RBS) - only ions provided by 1 MV TDT accelerator

CERIC continues to offer access to the following instruments, available since 2025: 