Peer-review committees and proposals evaluation

• Peer Review Committees
• Scientific Fields and composition of committees

• Proposals Evaluation

Peer-review committees

Committees members are nominated for a two years and a half renewable period, by tacit agreement.

Scientific Committee members can be invited to take part to a peer-review committee.

Each committee is formed with a sufficient number of  members to cover the full range of subfield of the research area.

Physical meetings take place twice a year: second half of November and April.

At the end of every meeting, each committee chair provide a report adressed to SOLEIL Direction and the Scientific Committee.

This report contains:

- observations on the quality and objectives of proposals,

- notification of hot topics,

- recommandations on possible improvements for either beamlines or beamtime allocation method.

Scientific fields and composition of committees

For more details on scientific fields, please 

Peer Review Committee 1 - Diluted matter 

(Last update: 24/06/2026)

Peer Review Committee 2 - Electronic and magnetic properties of matter - Surfaces and Interfaces

(Last update: 24/06/2026)

Peer Review Committee 3 - Matter and material properties: Structure, Organisation, Charactérisation, Elaboration

  (Last update: 24/06/2026)

Peer Review Committee 4 - Chemistry and physico-chemistry - Reactivity in situ - Soft matter

 (Last update: 24/06/2026)

Peer Review Committee 5 - Biology - Health

(Last update:24/06/2026)

Peer Review Committee 6 - Ancient materials - Environment and Earth

(Last update: 24/06/2026)

Proposals evaluation

Technical feasability and security group validation

Before peer-review committees’ meetings, beamlines managers provide an opinion on the suitability between the requested beamline and the proposal, as well as on the technical feasibility of the proposal.

If a proposal is considered not technically feasible by the beamline manager, he advises to decline beamtime. 

After peer-review committees meetings, SOLEIL safety group assess the accepted proposals (samples safety forms and experimental method). They suggest to withdraw one or more samples, to allow the proposal acceptance, otherwise the proposal is declined.

Proposals ranking

Committees’ members review and rank proposals on the basis of their scientific excellence.

Grades:

• 9 à 8 :  Excellent project to which time must be absolutely allocated.
• 7 à 6 : Project which must be accepted due to its scientific quality or to an ambitious instrumental development.
• 5 à 4 : Project which can be accepted if enough time is available.
• 3 à 2 : Project which must not be accepted due to an insufficient scientific quality or to a problem in the instrumental method.
• 1 : Eliminatory note due to failure in one of the critical criteria.

Rating criteria (absence of any of the following first 4 categories is eliminatory):

1. Scientific excellence

2. Capacity of the team: expertise to perform experiment / to analyse data / publications

3. Innovative character

4. Good use of SR beamline

5. Clear presentation of the proposal

Automatic rejection in the following cases:

1. Failure to submit an experimental report without good reason (illness, late scheduling of experiment….) means rejection of the proposal. 

• For April reviewing session the deadline for submission in the SUN set is March 15^th.
• For November reviewing session the deadline for submission in the SUN set is October 15^th.
   

2. Publication, for a specific project or sub project (BAG) is expected within 2 years of the first experiment. Failure to publish after this period means rejection of a continuation project unless detailed experimental report explains, to the satisfaction of PRC, why publication was not possible. 

The committees may adjust the beamtime depending on the demand on the beamline and the proposal’s scientific programme.

Results

After peer-review committees meetings, the Main proposer of the proposal is informed of SOLEIL Scientific Direction decision.

• If the proposal is accepted: an email notification with the number of allocated shifts. 
• If the proposal is declined: an email with the comment explaining the reasons. 

Schedule for the release of results:

• Around Mid-December for the call of September. 
• Around Mid-May for the call of February.

The approval of a proposal is based on the scientific excellence of the proposal itself and that of the teams involved. Consequently, no changes (Main Proposer, institute, co-proposers, etc.) may be made once the proposal has been accepted.