Proposal Calls


2027-A General User Proposal Call

Submissions for the 2027-A General User Proposal Call are open! The deadline for proposal submissions is September 23, 2026, 12pm noon Eastern time.

  • SNS is projected to run February - June 2027
  • HFIR is projected to run February - June 2027 (fuel cycles 520 - 522)

Proposals can be submitted using the Integrated Proposal Tracking System (IPTS). Researchers are highly encouraged to discuss proposed research with an instrument scientist for feedback before submitting.

Instrument Updates

CNCS/BL-5 - For dilution refrigerator inserts, proposals must be discussed before submission with a beamline scientist and beamtime awards are subject to helium and personnel resources. For CCR experiments requesting more than 1 sample, proposals must be discussed before submission with a beamline scientist.

IMAGINE-X/CG-4D – will not be available in the proposal call

New User Beamtime (NUBe) Program

The new user beamtime program (NUBe) is an initiative aimed at growing the neutron scattering user community and increasing the scientific and institutional diversity of our user base. Time will be allocated for NUBe proposals on each instrument participating in this call. For eligibility in this program, the Principal Investigator must hold a permanent position at their institution (i.e., any rank of faculty member or staff), have been awarded proposal time once or less as a PI, and must commit to participating onsite in the experiment if awarded. Students and post-docs are not eligible, but may participate as collaborators on the proposal. See the NUBe program webpage for more information.

User Participation Expectations

User engagement is essential to the success and productivity of our User Program. Awarded Principal Investigators are expected to participate in the experiment onsite or remotely by providing real time direction to the team. At least two users from the team should plan to participate in the experiment onsite. In some cases, remote participation may be substituted for onsite participation depending on experiment complexity. Please discuss your participation plans with the instrument team in advance.

Mail-in Program for HFIR and SNS Instruments

Mail-in proposals are available as an access mode outside the bi-annual proposal calls, and can be submitted in IPTS anytime. Mail-in proposals are limited to one day experiments, in which users send samples by mail for instrument staff to collect data on the user's behalf. Mail-in experiments are expected to contribute to a publication. Submit your mail-in proposal for the cycle you anticipate your samples being ready to send for analysis. Instruments participating in the mail-in program include: ARCS, BASIS, EQ-SANS, GP-SANS, HYSPEC, NOMAD, POWGEN, SEQUOIA, SNAP, VISION, VULCAN and WAND². Visit the individual instrument web page for more information about an instruments mail-in program requirements, instrument specific proposal template, and additional required documentation. If no instrument specific proposal template is available for a given instrument, you may use the general Mail-in proposal template.

Center for Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS) Resources Available

The Center for Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS) provides access to staff expertise and state-of-the-art equipment for a broad range of nanoscience research, including nanomaterials synthesis and deuteration, nanofabrication, imaging/microscopy/characterization, and theory/modeling/simulation. 

Requests for CNMS characterization time and/or chemical deuteration support can be made from the Other Experiment Resources step during proposal submission. In this step, users interested in CNMS support can select from a menu of deuterated monomers and request information from CNMS about other available services. Eight Deuterated Monomers are available to be requested through CNMS. Questions about the CNMS facilities can be submitted to cnmsuser@ornl.gov. Users may also submit a proposal directly to CNMS.