| Four French « Collaborating Research Group » beamlines The ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) synchrotron, based in Grenoble and operating since the early 1990s, is funded by 19 European countries. Of the 42 beamlines available, 31 are considered as public. Users wishing to work on these lines have their projects evaluated by ESRF Committees, composed of European (and Israeli) specialists in the different scientific fields. The remaining 11 beamlines are managed by research operators from certain ESRF member countries: France, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. These are the “Collaborating Research Groups”.
There are 4 French CRG beamlines: D2AM (Materials), FIP (bio-crystallography), FAME (EXAFS) and IF (Interfaces). On these lines, the beam time is divided as follows: 1/3 of the time is allocated by the ESRF Committees cited above. A “CRG Committee”, distinct from that of the ESRF and composed of scientists from the CEA and CNRS, has the task of allocating the remaining 2/3 of the time. | 
Photo aérienne de l’ESRF
(Image credit: A. Petricola, copyright 2008 A. Petricola).
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Simultaneous evaluation, specific allocations
From now on, allocating beam time shall be done at the same time for the French CRG beamlines and those of SOLEIL, which will make it possible to have a global view of all the research being carried out on French beam lines (i.e. those exclusively with French funding).
The program committees have been reconfigured to rationalize the evaluation of the different projects submitted and to take into account even more the scientific domains that cover the 24 beamlines. The 7 different committees that existed for the previous SOLEIL call for projects have now been reduced to 6:
http://www.synchrotron-soleil.fr/images/File/recherche/SUN/Pages/Tableau_CP.pdf
Although there is a common evaluation of the projects for the French beamlines, this will not affect the method of allocating beam time as the scientific specificity of the different beam lines has of course been kept.
The frequency of project submission has also remained unchanged: it is still twice a year.
SOLEIL user office is now responsible for receiving all the projects and organizing Program Committee meetings, but the procedures following allocation of beam time (follow-up of users, etc.) is logically taken up again by ESRF for the CRG beamlines.
