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This page explains the different reports that are requested following beamtime at the ESRF:

The Experiment Report

What is an Experiment Report?

The Experiment Report is a 2-page free-text document that reports on the use of beamtime and results obtained during an ESRF experiment session. One report is required per beamtime session. The document is used by Proposal Review Panels and ESRF Management to monitor the use of beamtime by the user groups, and is considered as part of the auxiliary data of a beamtime session according to our ESRF data policy. 

The submission of an Experiment Report for each beamtime session carried out at the ESRF is mandatory for all publicly funded beamtime sessions, including ESRF public beamtime, CRG private beamtime and inhouse research beamtime.
It is mandatory for all ESRF public proposal types, including long-term project (LTP) and community access (HUBs, BAGs and MX BAGs) proposals.

The submission of an Experiment Report is not required for commercial or beamtime commissioning (BLC) beamtime.

According to the ESRF data policy for public access, the Experiment Reports will not be published during the embargo period (3 years for publicly funded beamtime). During that time, they will only be accessible via the ESRF User Portal and used by the Proposal Review Panel members during the proposal review, the ESRF Management, the User/CRG Office and the beamline managers. After the 3-year embargo period, the reports will be made public via the DOI landing page for the experiment in the ESRF Data Portal.

Note that data produced by commercial or proprietary beamtime and any associated reports are reserved for the group paying for the beamtime and are considered under embargo forever unless requested to be opened by the group concerned. Please see our web page on the ESRF data policy for further details on how data from commercial beamtime are governed.

The report template is a 2-page document, containing instructions on the first page that must be removed before submission. The report is a free-text document that should briefly summarise the experiment(s) and measurements performed and the results obtained, clearly indicating the level of success of the experiment.

It is not necessary to include any session information since a summary table for the session (Proposal ID, beamline, dates, local contact, list of participants, etc) will be automatically produced from our database and appended to the front of the report on upload.

Note for MX BAGs: Due to the nature of MX BAG experiments, only a half-page report is expected indicating the number of projects/samples measured, the number of user groups involved, and an indication of the level of success of the experiments performed.

The Proposal Review Panel members pay particular attention to the submission and content of experiment reports by the proposer team. Each proposal lists the past beamtime activity at the ESRF of the proposer team, with the status of the Experiment Report submission. The investigators may indicate up to 3 of these experiment reports as "Relevant Reports" for the new proposal.

Missing reports for experiments that took place more than 3 months ago, and missing reports for more recent experiments indicated as one of the 3 "Relevant Reports" in the proposal form will most likely result in the rejection of the new proposal.

The Experiment Report for the session has to be submitted via the ESRF User Portal no later than 3 months after the end of the experiment. For reports supporting the submission of new proposals ("Relevant Reports"), the deadline for submission of the report is approximately 3 days after the proposal submission deadline – see here for deadline details. You can submit a "preliminary report" to support a new proposal: you will be able to replace it by the final report later, within the period of 3 months following the end of your experiment.

To submit your Experiment Report, log in to User Portal, go to the "Proposals/Experiments" tab and click on the "Proposals" menu. You will be redirected to your "My Proposals" page. In the "My submitted proposals" table, click on the button "Reports" of the relevant proposal. This button is activated only once at least one experiment session has been scheduled.

Once clicked, a page showing all experiment sessions for this proposal will be displayed - sessions only appear once they have finished (i.e. end date has passed). For each session the report status is shown, including whether the report submission is overdue and whether it is still under embargo or open. For each session, a new report may be added or an existing report may be replaced or downloaded.

All members of a proposal (PI, AC, CIs, and all users from any session) can download a report.
The PI, AC and CIs can submit or replace a report for any session of the proposal.
Users can only submit or replace a report for a session in which they participated (registered on the A-Form).

This page also allows direct access to the User Evaluation Form and the Data Portal for the session.

Please use the latest template below for your Experiment Report and carefully follow the instructions given on the first page.

Experiment Report Template

The Proposal Report

Annual Report

Proposers of long-term (LTPs) and community access (HUBs, BAGs and MX BAGs) proposals at the ESRF must submit an Annual Report each year, summarising the proposal activity and results according to the questions listed in the report template.

Final Report - for LTPs and HUBs only

In addition to the Annual Reports required for each year of the LTP/HUB duration, a Final Report is required at the end of the proposal summarising the overall outcome of the LTP/HUB over its full (typically 3 years) duration.

The Final Report is normally submitted for the first 31st January deadline following the end of beamtime allocation to the proposal. However, in the case where an LTP or HUB continuation proposal will be submitted, the Final Report should be submitted at the same time to support the new proposal.

Deadlines for submission of proposal reports

  • BAGs and MX-BAGs: 1st March or 10th September, depending on the 1-year anniversary date of the last proposal submission (e.g. for BAG proposals submitted at the March proposal deadline, the annual report must be submitted by 1st March each year).
  • LTPs and HUBs: 31st January each year (same date for the Final Report at the end of the project).

 

Annual report for MX-BAG proposals

Once MX-BAG status has been awarded, MX-BAGs must submit an Annual Report each year, describing their activity and results over the past 12 months. The Annual Report must be submitted via the ESRF User Portal according to the deadlines given below. It will not be published, and will only be accessible to the Proposal Review Panel members during the proposal review, the ESRF Management, the User/CRG Office and the beamline manager.

The Annual Report forms an integral part of any request for continuation of a BAG. The submission of a BAG continuation proposal cannot be completed if the Annual Report for the past year’s activity has not been submitted. On submission of a BAG continuation proposal, the request for continuation and the Annual Report are combined to create the full continuation proposal so that reviewers have a report on past activity and performance along with the request to continue the MX-BAG activity for a further year.

The MX-BAG Annual Report consists of 2 parts:

  • A statistics part concerning the past year of activity that is automatically generated from data in the ESRF SMIS database;
  • An activity report part which consists of a template to be downloaded and completed by the MX-BAG PI, AC and CIs, and uploaded as a pdf file by the MX-BAG PI or AC.

On final submission of the MX-BAG Annual Report, the statistics part is updated with the latest data and both parts are combined to produce the final document.

Note that it is possible to start working on the Annual Report independently to the creation of the continuation proposal. However, we advise to wait until the reminder email has been sent by the ESRF User Office (6-8 weeks before the deadline) to ensure that the correct actions are taken and that the beamtime use statistics are as recent as possible before writing the content of the report.

  Watch our 2-minute tutorial on
"How to submit an MX-BAG annual report in the ESRF User Portal".

Deadlines for submission of an MX-BAG Annual Report

1st March or 10th September, depending on the 1-year anniversary date of the last proposal submission (e.g. for BAG proposals submitted at the March proposal deadline, the annual report must be submitted by 1st March each year).

 Who can submit an MX-BAG Annual Report?

Only the Principal Investigator and Alternative Contact (if one is named) can submit an MX-BAG Annual Report. However, the statistics part can be downloaded by any of the Co-Investigators, and once an activity report file has been uploaded by the PI or AC, that file can be downloaded by any of the Co-Investigators. Once the annual report has been submitted, it is no longer editable and can be downloaded by all participants of the MX-BAG.

 How to create an MX-BAG Annual Report?

In your list of ‘My submitted proposals’, click on the ‘Reports’ button for your current BAG proposal number and select ‘Proposal report’ from the pull-down menu. This will take you to a page where you can download a pdf of the statistics part, upload the completed activity report part and finally submit the BAG Annual Report which combines both documents and updates the statistics part with the latest data.

 MX-BAG Annual Report statistics

The statistics part of the Annual Report is automatically generated from data in the ESRF SMIS database. The statistics concern beamtime usage, BAG participants (PI, CIs and users) and publications from the BAG in the past year of activity.

Which beamtime usage stats are listed?

The beamtime usage stats that are shown in the statistics part of the BAG Annual Report correspond to the beamtime used in the year preceding the MX-BAG report submission, so the last 2 scheduling periods. As an example,

  • MX-BAG report submission in September 2025: reporting period is 2024/II and 2025/I, so  from August 2024 to July 2025,
  • MX-BAG report submission in March 2026: reporting period is 2025/I and 2025/II, so  from March 2025 to February 2026.

Note that, due to the schedule of yearly submission for MX-BAG proposals and the 6-month delay before the new BAG proposal number is used for scheduling, the beamtime used by your BAG over the past year was scheduled under 2 different BAG numbers: the most recent scheduling period comes under your current BAG number, while the preceding scheduling period comes under your previous BAG proposal number. You do not need to worry about this, the automatic extraction of stats takes this into account.

Which BAG participants are listed?

The BAG participants that are shown in the statistics part of the BAG Annual Report correspond to:

  • all BAG participants of your current BAG number (PI, CIs and users).

Even though the beamtime usage stats correspond to the first 6 months of beamtime of your current BAG proposal and the last 6 months of beamtime of your previous BAG proposal, the list of BAG participants only concerns those participants involved in the current proposal.

Which publications are listed?

The publications that are shown in the statistics part of the BAG Annual Report correspond to those that fulfill ALL of the following criteria. They must be:

  • registered and linked to either your current MX BAG proposal number or one of your past 10 MX BAG proposal numbers in the ESRF Library database;
  • imported into the 'My Publications' list of at least one of the current or past MX BAG participants (PI, CIs or users) in the User Portal;
  • published since the year of the current MX BAG proposal submission to the year of the MX BAG report submission (for example, MX BAGs reporting in 2025 were submitted in 2024, so the publication years taken into account are 2024 and 2025).

It is therefore imperative that all BAG participants create their My Publications list in their User Portal account profile and check that the publications are associated to the BAG proposal number(s) under which data were collected. If this information is not complete, please send the missing information to the ESRF Library so that it can be updated, otherwise the publication will not appear in the report.
*Note that it is also obligatory to associate any publications to the beamline(s) on which data were collected. Although this will not affect the Annual Report, this is one of the publication rules and is important for evaluation of the beamline productivity.

The Annual Report for (non-MX) BAG proposals must be submitted by email to the ESRF User Office according to the deadlines listed above. The proposal reports will not be published, and will be accessible to the Proposal Review Panel members during the proposal review, the ESRF Management, the User/CRG Office and the beamline manager.

The ESRF User Office will contact the Principal Investigators of ongoing BAG proposals in January and July of each year to remind them to submit the proposal report according to the deadlines.

Please see the specific guidelines for BAGs for more details.

BAG Proposal Report Template

The Annual and Final Report (when applicable) for LTP and HUB proposals must be submitted by email to the ESRF User Office according to the deadlines listed above. The proposal reports will not be published, and will be accessible to the Proposal Review Panel members during the proposal review, the ESRF Management, the User/CRG Office and the beamline manager.

The ESRF User Office will contact the Principal Investigators of ongoing LTP and HUB proposals in December of each year to remind them to submit the proposal report according to the deadlines.

The User Feedback Form

In addition to the Experiment Report, users are also requested to fill in the User Feedback Form after each beamtime session. This feedback will help to improve the facilities and services provided by the ESRF.

The form is accessible via the "Reports" page of the ESRF User Portal ("Proposals/Experiment" tab, menu "Proposals", table of "My submitted proposals", click on the "Report" button for the concerned proposal to see all past experiment sessions and click on the corresponding Feedback Form icon for the session in question) and also via the end-of-session email sent to the user team after each beamtime.

On submission, you will receive an email notification with the summary of your responses as confirmation that the submission has been successful.

You can also access the feedback form (but without prefilled information from your session) using this link.

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