Access rates and conditions

College policy on use and cost of access to Advanced Microscopy Facility

In order to optimise efficient use of the facility, increase fairness, transparency, manage demand and reduce administrative workload, this section summarises the availability and charges for access to the AMF.). ‘A session’ is 4 hours; a morning session and an afternoon session are available each day. Otherwise, hour slots will be available for users. 

UKRI funding

At the time of grant preparation on Worktribe appropriate RTP/technician time and consumables costs must be allocated for projects with AMF use. Please discuss grant application costings for staff time and consumables with the AMF amf@le.ac.uk.

Externally funded research (non UKRI) within CSE, and users from CLS and external users from other UK Institutions and Companies

We have a set of FEC costs on hourly and daily rates for access to the AMF, including technician-RTP support.  These range from £340 to £423 per day for FEG-SEM with EDS, WDS, etc, £203 per day for Nikon CT, £673 X-Radia D-CT, £223 XRD, £1009 Zeiss CrossBeam or Femtosecond laser (Hercules Facility). Charity (e.g. Leverhulme) proposals, which do not come with overheads, have their own FEC daily rates. For pilot projects we can sometimes offer reduced rates.

Please contact us on amf@le.ac.uk.

Proof-of-concept work and use by Other University of Leicester Colleges

Please contact the AMF amf@le.ac.uk for proof of concept use of our instruments without grant funding or use from outside of the College of Science and Engineering.

Post Graduate Training (externally and internally funded) and Undergraduate Teaching

FEC costs will not be applied for new individual PhD, MSc projects, though access to instruments will be balanced with other users. Similarly, for undergraduate projects supervised work must be agreed with the RTPs in advance to balance demand by different user groups. All PhD students will be offered appropriate training. 

Initiation of projects

All projects should be discussed in advance with the AMF or RTP who will be able to offer advice on appropriate methodology and arrange delivery of samples / facility access. amf@le.ac.uk

Publications

Facility staff will be pleased to assist users in preparation for publication of results obtained within the AMF, and invite authors to review methods and results with them prior to manuscript submission.

Where results generated within the AMF are included in a publication, we request acknowledgement as follows:

• Where there is significant scientific input, including development of experimental procedure or interpretation of results, we request the AMF staff member in question is included as co-author.
• Where AMF and/or staff have provided a service, we request the authors acknowledge use of the University of Leicester Advanced Microscopy Facility and name of AMF staff member when appropriate.
• Where work is carried out independently, or AMF staff are co-authors, we request acknowledgement of the University of Leicester Advanced Microscopy Facility.
• Please send the AMF a record of all publications which make use of our instruments.