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F A C T S A N D F I G U R E S

User operation

In 2024, the ESRF’s full portfolio of beamlines operated at full capacity. Notably, the newly constructed EBSL beamline for hard X-ray microscopy, ID03, welcomed its first users in April. Additionally, the second Titan Krios cryo-electron microscope (CM02), operated by a French Collaborative Research Group (CRG), commenced user operation in the autumn. Refurbishment of the French CRG absorption spectroscopy beamline for materials and environmental sciences (BM30, FAME) continued, with the beamline expected to host its first users in 2025.

Figure 131 illustrates the evolution of beamtime applications since 2017. Following the ‘dark period’ for users in 2019-2020 due to the ESRF-Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS) upgrade, and subsequent disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, beamline operations have returned to pre-EBS levels. In both 2023 and 2024, nearly 1000 proposals were allocated beamtime – marking the second-highest allocation level in ESRF history. Beamtime applications increased significantly in 2024, with 13% more proposals received than in previous years. This trend looks likely to continue in 2025, where a further 10% increase in beamtime requests for 2025-I has been noted. Proposals are selected via peer review by 12 Beam Time Allocation Panels (BTAPs), composed of specialists mainly from ESRF member states and scientific associate countries. These panels review proposals for a subset of beamlines, as listed on page 174. Table 8 lists the scientific areas of ESRF research activities reviewed by these 12 panels.

The BTAPs met twice to review beamtime requests, around six weeks after the proposal submission deadlines (10 September 2023 for beamtime in 2024-I and 1 March 2024 for beamtime in 2024-II). They reviewed 2200 applications, of which 989 (45%) were selected for beamtime. In total, the requests for beamtime (scheduled in shifts of eight hours) in 2024 totalled 30 560 shifts, of which 14 378 (47%) were allocated. The distribution of shifts requested and allocated by scientific area for 2024 is shown in Table 8, while the number of shifts requested, allocated and delivered per year since 2017 is shown in Figure 132. The data for delivered shifts in 2024 include experiments up to 31 December 2024, and so are not yet complete since the 2024/II operation period finishes on 1 March 2025.

SCIENTIFIC FIELD TOTAL SHIFTS REQUESTED

TOTAL SHIFTS ALLOCATED

Chemistry 5 608 1 892

Earth Sciences 2 717 1 471

Environment 839 294

Hard Condensed Matter Science 6 688 2 703

Cultural Heritage 309 150

Life Sciences 1 674 1 005

Applied Materials Science 6 048 2 559

Medicine 513 345

Engineering 664 210

Methods & Instrumentation 444 216

Structural Biology 3 587 2 807

Soft Condensed Matter 1 469 726

Totals 30 560 14 378

Table 8: Shifts of beamtime requested and allocated for public user experiments, year 2024.

Fig. 131: Numbers of proposals, experimental sessions and user visits, 2016 to 2024. N.B. 2024 experiments and user visit figures are up to 31 December 2024; they do not include the experiments that will continue to be scheduled in the remainder of 2024/II (in Jan/Feb 2025).