General Lab Information

User Agreements

The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) requires that a User Agreement be executed for every accepted proposal at its National User Facilities, such as the CFN. These agreements stipulate the terms and conditions under which non-BNL employees may conduct work at the CFN. If you are not a BNL employee, a user agreement must be signed by your home institution as a prerequisite for research work to be done at the CFN. Users are not permitted to perform research work until a User Agreement with that user’s home institution is established. Important issues such as intellectual property and liability are addressed in the User Agreement.

User Agreements are available in 5-year umbrella versions that, once executed by all parties, apply to the current and all future CFN user proposals submitted from the signatory institutions within that 5-year period. The Agreement must be signed by a person from the user’s institution who is legally authorized to enter into contractual obligations for the user’s institution. Note: The user himself/herself is generally NOT authorized to make these contractual obligations. If users from multiple institutions are participating in one user project, User Agreements are required from each institution before work can begin at the CFN.

Any change in the terms and conditions requested by the user institution must be approved by the U.S. Department of Energy. This can be a lengthy process (6 months or more).

Please note the following:

  • Non-proprietary agreements cover open research done at any of BNL’s user facilities
  • Proprietary agreements are facility-specific. If you are conducting proprietary work at more than one facility, you will need to have agreements with each facility. If you are conducting both proprietary and non-proprietary work, you will need to sign both agreements.

If you are conducting Proprietary research at the CFN, you must submit a Statement of Work, which must be reviewed by the CFN for feasibility, signed by the CFN Director, and approvedl by the DOE Brookhaven Site Office and the DOE Chicago Operations Office.

How to Request a User Agreement

If your institution does not have a master user agreement with BNL, complete the Online User Agreement Questionnaire. Fill in the requested information and BNL will furnish the appropriate User Agreement(s) to your institution for signature. This form may be submitted electronically by completing the questionnaire and clicking the submit button or by printing and returning a printable version (PDF) via fax to 631-344-8686.