Materials Research Program Advisory Committee (Mat-PAC)
GSI/FAIR have established a Materials Research Program Advisory Committee (Mat-PAC) that evaluates experiment proposals in the area of materials research. The Mat-PAC members give advice to the GSI/FAIR directorate on selecting experiment proposals that are submitted by individual users or user groups, currently for the FAIR-Phase 0 program. Following periodic calls for proposals, the Mat-PAC meets to evaluate experiment proposals on the basis of scientific merit and with regard to the GSI/FAIR strategy, and advises the GSI/FAIR Scientific Director on the amount of beamtime to be approved.
'Call for Proposals' for beamtime in 2026/2027 - (closed since March 3, 2025)
The GSI/FAIR Scientific Management invited experiment proposals to be submitted in the framework of FAIR Phase-0, which offers beamtime for experiments at GSI until the start of FAIR. The FAIR Phase-0 program is exploiting the facilities of GSI, upgraded to meet the requirements as FAIR injectors, plus the FAIR CRYRING storage ring and the PHELIX laser. Moreover, it offers an opportunity to use detectors developed for FAIR for scientific programs.
This Call for Proposals is foreseen to offer user beamtime in the area of materials research (counted as main shifts) in 2026 and 2027 combined of roughly
- 87,5 shifts at UNILAC,
- 30,0 shifts at SIS18,
- 20,5 shifts in total for at ESR, ESR-HITRAP and ESR-CRYRING.
For experiments at CRYRING in standalone-mode (internal ion sources only) separate ‘Call’ are opened.
A list of typically available beam parameters can be found here.
Proposals to be evaluated by the Mat-PAC were to be submitted by March 3, 2025.
Please note that due to current European sanctions participants with Russian or Belarussian affiliation cannot be participants in experiment proposals at GSI/FAIR.
Detector Tests:
For beamtime applications for pure detectors tests in 2026/27 (i.e. test of detectors or similar instrumentation but w/o direct scientific goal (!), in parasitic beam mode) please contact the respective PAC Scientific Secretary (e.g. M. Vogel for G-PAC) to obtain specific access and instructions for this. Deadline is the same as for scientific proposals.
During proposal submission the Proposer is explicitly asked to indicate host lab resources required for the proposed experiment additional to beamtime requests. Related to preparations for FAIR, technical and infrastructure departments often have very tight time schedules and need to plan carefully with respect to time and manpower. In order to offer the best possible service enabling the experiments to be set up and run in an optimal way, we need to know all requirements to us as host lab in advance.
In the webform you are asked to mark whether and which resources you will need, incl. further specifications on this request. This will allow the involved departments to confirm the feasibility. Together with your local contact person, you can restrict your information there to a minimum and best guesses from experience or after consulting the department involved. In case of doubts, the respective department will come back to you with further questions before confirming feasibility of your experiment.
While this information in the proposal serves as rough information only, when planning the execution of your experiment you need to contact the respective host department directly and with concrete details on your requirements.
We absolutely want to avoid the situation in which after evaluation and granting we discover, that the proponents had expected service of GSI, which cannot be delivered (at the required time/in that detail or volume) and thus a granted experiment cannot run.
For proposal and user management we use the platform GATE: The General Access Tool to the Experimental facilities of GSI / FAIR.
Registration to GATE under: https://gate.gsi.de.
GATE Short Manual for Users: here
Registration in GATE is possible independant of an open 'Call' at any time and registered users will be informed on new 'Calls'. So it is advisable for interested users to register any time.
All (!) participants of a proposal and experimentalists coming on-site for the experiment need to be registered in GATE (and allow being visible for other users' search in GATE).
Note on Research Data Management Plan
A Research Data Management Plan (RDMP) is currently not mandatory, but users are asked to plan ahead of time how to take, manage, process and store their data, and think about its possible later publication. This also helps in formulating a request for host lab resources, e.g. IT support, if required. For more information see this document.
Database of granted beam time
Experiments with granted beamtime (i.e. ranked A) are listed in this table. It contains experiments in the status after granting and before completion/expiry, and gives number of granted shifts.
Experiments in the reserve list have been ranked A- due to large overdraft of beamtime. They might be scheduled if beamtime becomes available.
Data are updated before and after a beamtime block.
Further information on application and scheduling of beam time is given under the websites Applying for Beamtime and Scheduling, respectively. General information on beam time can be found here.
Members of the Mat-PAC
- Aurélie Gentils
Univ. Paris-Saclay, France
- Katharina Lorenz
Technical Univ. Lisbon, Portugal
- Daniel Primetzhofer
Uppsala Univ., Sweden
- Hermann Rothard
GANIL, France
- William J. Weber (Chair)
University of Tennessee, USA
Mat-PAC Scientific Secretary
Dr. Pascal Simon
GSI, Darmstadt
Phone: +49-6159-71 1954
Contact by E-Mail to: Mat-PAC-Secretary(at)gsi.de
Next Mat-PAC Meeting
Presently, there is no meeting of the committee planned, nor is there any open 'Call for Beamtime Proposals'.
Users registered in GATE indicating their interest in our facilities will be informed on new calls.
Recent Mat-PAC Meetings
Mat-PAC06, June 16-17, 2025: Documents of the meeting (for Mat-PAC members only)
Mat-PAC05, September 20-21, 2022
Mat-PAC04, June 16/17, 2020
Mat-PAC03, September 19/20, 2017
Mat-PAC02, November 15/16, 2010: Agenda Mat-PAC02
Mat-PAC01, March 12/13, 2009
Information on the MAT-beamlines
Information on the MAT-beamlines, the different target stations and parameters is given here.
User Services
Information for Users on services and beam time can be found on the Users' Webpages.
Central point of contact for associated guests and users on campus is the Welcome Office.
General Data Protection Regulation GDPR (according to Art. 13 and 14 DSGVO): Staff Management Board GDPR english
