Private Sector Research

Private Sector Research is defined as that for which users request confidentiality of proposal, data and results for a certain period of time. This research follows the guidelines for implementation by the Stanford University Faculty Senate and is executed through a Supplementary Use Agreement for Private Sector Research for each individual research proposal submitted to SSRL. Private Sector Research is subject to the Department of Energy's full-cost recovery requirement for facility charges for the use of SSRL facilities and advance payment of those charges. The facility charges are established as a dollar rate for each shift of beam time.

Experimenters interested in conducting Private Sector Research should contact the User Research Administration Manager well in advance of the anticipated need for beam time as the legal procedures involved may take up to several months to finalize. The Supplemental Use Agreement for Private Sector Research is in addition to the standard Use Agreement, which is required for all user institutions.

For beam time to be assigned on general user stations, proposals for Private Sector Research must be reviewed for merit and to assure that all ES&H guidelines are met in accordance with standard SSRL policies and procedures. Sufficient generic information to enable external peer and Proposal Review Panel review should be provided in standard and program proposals. Proposals designated as private sector research will be maintained in confidence during the review process to the maximum extent possible.

Private Sector Research can be performed on Participating Research Team (PRT) time in cases where the industry is a PRT member. However, the three-year performance review of the PRT must include at least sufficient information on how the private sector research time was used so that a review can be made by the external group appointed to carry out the review.

General Conditions:
  1. Stanford faculty, students or research staff will not be directly involved in the research aspects of the Private Sector Research program.
  2. No more than 15 percent of the SSRL beam time in a given 12-month running period will be used for Private Sector Research.
  3. The SLAC Associate Director for SSRL, or the Associate Director's designate, and the SSRL Safety Officer will be provided with a description of the experiment and its goals prior to the approval of the experiment. The description will be sufficiently detailed so that the Associate Director can understand and monitor the main components of the experiment and the Safety Officer can assure that all ES&H guidelines are met and that there is no risk to people, the facility or the environment. If possible, these should be written so that the confidential nature of the research is not compromised.
  4. Disclosure of intellectually significant results of the experimental work will be made within five years from the time of completion of the data collection at SSRL.
  5. A yearly disclosure will be made of the scientific and programmatic accomplishments at least in general terms (such as a contribution to the SSRL activity report).
  6. Barriers, roped-off areas or other similar measures that would restrict access to the experimental stations will not be used.

SSRL is funded by the Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract DE-AC03-76SF00515. The SSRL Structural Molecular Biology Program is supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources, Biomedical Technology Program, and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
 

Last Updated: 27 Sep 2007
Content Owner: Cathy Knotts
Page Editor: Lisa Dunn