Experimental Authorisation (EAs)

If your proposal has been approved and scheduled for beamtime, you will be required to complete and Experiment Authorisation (EA) form, to assess the safety of the experiment to be conducted onsite.

Introduction

Our EA form is a type of risk assessment that we use to outline the hazards, risks and mitigations in place for a scheduled experiment.

A Quick Reference Guide for the process can be found here.

Any aspect of an experiment carried out onsite at the Australian Synchrotron must be captured for review in this form.

Every scheduled experiment at the Australian Synchrotron must have an approved EA in place before the experiment can commence at the beamline. You currently require a new EA form per scheduled beamtime; therefore if your beamtime has been split into two, to conduct your experiments at different times, you will need an EA per separate booking. Note, to simplify this process please be aware of the ‘Clone’ function within the Portal: Designed to allow submitters to duplicate information from a previous EA which can then be used when submitting a new EA.

Your EA form will undergo review by a) the User Office, b) your beamline scientists and c) the Safety team. You may be contacted for further information at any time during the review process and/or you may be required to update and resubmit forms with additional information.

For example, if the experiment or samples/chemicals being brought onsite are considered to be of higher risk, you may be required to complete and upload a more detailed risk assessment for your experiment (using a form standard to your home institute).

Points of Note

All EAs must be submitted at least 5 full working days before the date of the experiment. Any alterations to a submitted EA must be made, and the EA re-submitted, at least 3 full working days before the date of the experiment.
Your EA form MUST be approved prior to shipping items to site and prior to experiment start (remote access, mail-in OR onsite).
Only Users listed on an approved EA as either ‘Attending onsite’ or ‘Remote access’ can conduct the experiment (onsite or remotely respectively).
Each User group must nominate a Group Spokesperson; see ‘The EA form’ below.
Only samples/chemicals and electrical equipment (excluding laptops and phones) that have been listed on an approved EA can be brought to site. Note, the EA sample spreadsheet template has been updated as of January 2022; see ‘How to complete the EA Sample Spreadsheet’ below.
You can update your EA form after experiment start, e.g. to request to add a new onsite User or add a new sample for analysis, however your experiment at the beamline will be haledt for however long it takes to re-review and re-approve the updated form.

For further information see: https://www.ansto.gov.au/our-facilities/australian-synchrotron/frequently-asked-questions-for-users

A detailed pdf can also be found on the website, as can further information about your scheduled beamtime: https://www.ansto.gov.au/our-facilities/australian-synchrotron/before-your-experiment

On this page:

1 Introduction
2 Points of Note
3 How to start your EA form
4 The EA form
5 Submitting an EA for review

How to start your EA form

Log into your Australian Synchrotron Portal Account.
Navigate to Experiment Authorisations section and click ‘Create and Manage’
On the ‘Manage Experimental Authorisations’ page, select ‘Create EA’ to start the process. The forms are accessible from here.

The EA form

The EA form is set up as a series of tabs which must be filled out before the final Submit tab will allow submission of the EA. These tabs can be selected in any order and there are additional buttons for navigation at the bottom of each page.

Detail Experiment title and scheduled beamtime dates. Answer any beamline specific questions about your experiment.

Please note that we do not need to review activities that are not conducted onsite at the Synchrotron e.g. specific sample preparation carried out in your home laboratory.

Users User details including safety induction status. *Note, only Users listed on an approved EA may conduct an experiment.

Group Spokesperson Each User group must nominate a group Spokesperson.

be physically present during the allocated beamtime (with the exception of MX remote access experiments where all users are participating remotely); they must supply their phone number and be contactable during the scheduled beamtime.
being the main point of contact during the allocated beamtime.
ensuring their User group adhere to the AS’s policies and procedures.
ensuring their Users have completed required online and onsite AS Safety inductions.
ensuring their Users conduct themselves in a courteous and professional manner.
for submitting the EA form; however another person within a User group can submit an EA and nominate an appropriate Spokesperson.

Note: Each user listed in the EA form must have valid online facility safety training in order to submit the EA. Any users without valid training will display ‘Expired’ in the ‘Safety Training Status’ field. Instructions on how to complete the online induction will be emailed upon clicking the ‘Email User’ button.

Travel Funding & Accom Travel funding.

Samples A list of all the samples, chemicals and equipment required for an experiment to be conducted onsite. See https://asuserwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/x/BwBAp for further details. Download, complete and upload the EA samples spreadsheet if required (more details on the samples spreadsheet can be found here).

Submitting an EA for review

Note - an EA can only be submitted for review when all listed Users have completed their assigned (online) safety inductions to work on an ANSTO site.

You will be asked to confirm the following declaration upon EA submission:

I hereby confirm that all information I am supplying in support of this application for Experiment Authorisation is correct. I understand that any users or samples not listed will not be allowed into the Australian Synchrotron. I am duly authorised to complete and sign this application on behalf of the Users participating in this experiment.

When you have submitted your EA, it will undergo review by a) the User Office, b) your beamline scientists and c) the Safety team. You may be contacted for further information at any stage during the review process and/or you may be required to update and resubmit the form.

You can check the status of your EAs through the dashboard in the User Portal.

Once the EA has been approved by all three departments, the User will receive an email stating the experiment has been approved.