1. Application period, how to submit proposal, etc.

【Application Period】

From April 17 - May 8, 2025 at 17:00 Japan Time (UTC+09:00)
Generally, Proposal Submission System is crowded on the closing day. You are strongly recommended to submit your proposal well in advance of the deadline.

【Planned beamtime period】

Short-term proposals: from February - March 2026
One-year proposals: from February - June 2026
*The operation period for 2025B round (second half of FY2025) is shorter than usual. .

【Submission】

Login to the J-PARC Proposal Submission System via J-PARC Portal.

【Template】

For short-term proposals…Ver. 2025B
For one-year proposals…Ver. 2025B+2026A
Download the template here.
Application will not be accepted if the latest template is not used.

【Beamtime Estimation】

Please estimate the beamtime with beam power of 750 kW.

【Language】

Japanese or English (For the 2025B period, applications written in Japanese will be accepted.)

【Eligibility】

• Limited to the 2025B term: Only researchers and graduate students (master's and doctoral programs)* affiliated with domestic universities, private companies, or public research institutions in Japan
• Applications from overseas institutions will not be received.

In cases where the applicant falls under items regulated by Japanese laws and regulations regarding security export control (e.g., a person who belongs or used to belong to an organization listed in the Foreign End User List of METI, a national of a non-NPT member country, a person subject to regulations on sanctions against Russia, etc.), the eligibility for application will be determined after consultation with the MEXT, etc.

• Please contact Instrument Scientist of the applying beamline before submitting the proposal.
• Enter “Graduate Student” in the field of the applicant’s job title.
• The applicant’s academic supervisor as well as a person who will attend and supervise the experiment must be registered as Collaborators. In the fields of their job titles, add “AS” or “ES” after his/her job title respectively.
  e.g. : Professor, AS Research staff, ES Professor, AS, ES
  Both AS and ES are required for the application to be accepted.
• The experiment supervisor (ES) must be either an academic staff member of the applicant’s university which includes his/her academic supervisor or a research collaborator (not including graduate students).

2. Requirement of prior consultation

【Prior consultation for sample environment, experiment conditions and equipment to bring in】

• Please consult Instrument Scientist before the application regarding the sample environment or experimental conditions (especially special sample environment such as magnetic field), and apply under effective research conditions. The proposal may not be approved if it is considered that the experiment cannot be completed because the necessary conditions is not well considered.
• If you will use your own equipment other than that provided in the facility, you shall consult with Instrument Scientist in advance during the preparation stage of the proposal application. In the case of muon beamlines, even if a muon section member will be a collaborator responsible for coordinating with the facility, please note that prior consultation with the contact person of the beamline team is strongly required.

Contact information: List of Instruments

【PI of private companies applying for the muon instrument】

PI who belong to a private company wishing to use the muon instrument is requested to contact J-PARC Center Users' Office in advance. Contact information can be found at the bottom of this website.

【Proposals using BL16】

Please contact the instrument scientist in advance to discuss the experiment details if you apply for beamtime of BL16 (SOFIA, Soft Interface Analyzer)
Contact information: BL16

【First time and novice users of neutron/muon beamlines】

J-PARC Center accept consultations from first time and novice users of neutron/muon beamlines. If you are considering using the neutron/muon beamlines, please contact us through Neutron and Muon Users Portal Site (J-JOIN).

3. Types of proposals

For More Information

*Pre-application is required to apply.

** Proposals that involve the development of experimental technique can be submitted as one-year proposals.

4. Selection of the review field

Submitted proposals are reviewed by each research field experts. Please choose the appropriate research field when applying.
List of keywords for each research field.

5. Instruments available for this proposal round

Please contact Instrument Scientist for the specification of the instruments etc.

6. Points to note for proposal application

• If you cite text or figures from other papers or other sources, please be sure to clearly indicate the source of the citation. If plagiarism is identified in the application during the review process, the application may be withdrawn.
• Please obtain the consent of the person concerned before adding them to your list of collaborators. This also applies when the collaborator is an MLF staff member. Proposals may be rejected if a person is included as a collaborator without his/her consent.
• Use of samples including nuclear fuel materials/elements is prohibited. Only RI samples permitted by MLF may be used.
• Users who intend to bring in electrical equipment of which power output rating is 7.5kW and above/7.5kVA and above or equipment of which current rating is 30A and above must include the detailed equipment specifications in the research plan.
• KEK beamlines (refer to “Instruments available”) do not accept undergraduate students as Collaborators. However, they may participate in the research as interns. If a graduate student participates as a Collaborator, write “Graduate Student” in the field of the job title.
• J-PARC also welcomes P-type proposals to conduct test experiments in preparation for general use and Project use (S-type use) proposal as well as proposals from the users who have no experience in muon use. For more details, please click here.

7. Indication of keywords

Please list up to 5 keywords that briefly describe the proposal in the Research Plan template.

8. Complementary Use proposals

Please indicate if your proposed research includes, or is likely to include in the future, the complementary use of other major research facilities such as, but not limited to, synchrotron radiation sources (SPring-8, SACLA, PF, etc.), JRR-3, supercomputer (HPCI including Fugaku etc.), or other quantum beam facilities. If the above applies to your proposal, indicate the details in the Research Plan template. This information will be used only to survey current trends in research proposals at MLF.

9. Evaluation process and criteria

• Submitted proposals will be reviewed, through the prescribed review process, from comprehensive and specialized viewpoints based on the evaluation criteria. The beamtime of the proposal will be determined in consideration of the scientific merits of the proposal and adequacy of the necessary beamtime.
• If the review panel has judged that there is a more appropriate beamline than the one requested, the beamline may be changed.

10. Conditions for conducting experiments for approved proposals

• PI is required to read and accept the J-PARC MLF User Agreement and, before conducting the experiment, submit the consent form. Please click here to see how to submit the consent form.
• PI and collaborators are required to complete the designated procedures by two weeks prior to the scheduled experiment date. Further information
• MLF Experiment Hall is a radiation control area. PI and collaborators participating in the experiment are required to follow the procedures for personal dosimeters. Click here for further information.
• In principle, Instrument Scientist will not conduct the experiment on behalf of the users. Please ensure that PI or other team member comes to MLF to conduct the experiment (including the preparation).
• If PI and Instrument Scientist agree by 30 days prior to the scheduled experiment day that there is no prospect of implementing the experiment, the beamtime will be canceled. (If such a member is coming from abroad and a visa is necessary, be sure that he/she can obtain an appropriate visa.)
• Please refer to the websites of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan for information on necessary procedures, conditions for coming to Japan, etc.
• Experiment is not allowed to be implemented if it is attended only by students (including graduate students).
• In principle, experiments implemented by non-residents of Japan or residents of Japan with strong association to foreign countries are subject to export control (research team members, sample, obtained data, etc.). Please note that there may be cases where the implementation of the experiment is not permitted or the entry to the site is not permitted depending on the results of the screening of export control even if the proposal application has been received or the experiment has been approved through proposal selection screening.

11. Usage fee for Proprietary Use Proposals

Usage fee is 4,287,000 JPY (tax included)/ day
Fees are calculated in 30-minute increments and rounded up to the nearest yen.

12. Beamtime Utilization Report and Experiment Report (Non-Proprietary Use Proposals)

• PI of Non-Proprietary Use proposals is required to submit the Beamtime Utilization Report promptly after implementing the experiment.
• The users of Non-Proprietary Use proposals are required to submit the experiment report within 60 days after the end of the experiment period that the experiment was conducted. Click here for the deadline.
• If the experiment report is not submitted 30 days after the deadline, the fee collection procedure will be initiated (except for the KEK beamlines).
• If the experiment report is not submitted after the deadline, PI cannot apply for beamtime in the following proposal rounds. (He/she cannot participate in the experiment as a collaborator.)
• The experiment report will be published on J-PARC website after six months from the submission deadline.

13. Publication of experiment results

• Please publish the results of the experiment within 3 years counting from the April 1 after the experiment is completed.
• The publication must be in the form of peer-reviewed paper, peer-reviewed proceedings, doctoral/master dissertation, patents, public technical report, J-PARC annual report, or collection of results.
• When publishing the results, it is recommended to consult with Instrument Scientist in advance about who should be the co-author.
• It is also important to consider the support provided by Instrument Scientist and other staffs maintaining and operating the facility when deciding the co-authors. Please indicate the proposal number and the beamline(s) used for the experiment in the publishment. (Sample Acknowledgements)

14. Disclosure of information on proposals and experiment data

15. Additional call for proposals

There may be an additional call for proposals in the case where the total of the applied beamtime in this call for proposal is less than the available beamtime. In that case, information will be released on the website, etc.

16. Notification of review result

The review results will be sent to the applicants’ email addresses registered in the Proposal Submission System. The provisional notification will be sent around Augst 2025, and the official notification is planned to be sent after all the review process has been completed, which will be in September 2025.

17. Contact Us

For Non-Proprietary Use:j_proposalmlj-parc.jp
For Proprietary Use: j_proposal_pmlj-parc.jp
For General Questions: jimurisokumlj-parc.jp

[Eligibility]
Eligibility for the 2025B period is limited to researchers and graduate students affiliated with domestic institutions (research institutes, companies, and universities) in Japan.

[Instruments available for this proposal round]
Neutron and Muon Instruments

[Note]

• Please be sure to use the latest template file for the research plan. Application will not be accepted if the latest template file is not used.

• Please note that non-proprietary user shall submit "experiment report" within 60 days of the end of each beamtime period.

• Please consult the instrument scientist before the application regarding the sample environment or experimental conditions (especially special sample environment such as magnetic field), and apply under appropriate conditions.

• With regard to application for beamtime of BL16 (SOFIA), the applicant shall consult the instrument scientist about the experiment details before applying.

• If you will apply muon instruments and bring in your own equipment other than that provided in the facility, applicant shall consult the instrument scientist in advance during the preparation stage of the proposal application. Even if a muon section member will be a collaborator responsible for coordinating with the facility, please note that prior consultation with the instrument scientist will be strongly required.

• In principle, the instrument scientists will not conduct your experiment on your behalf.

[CONTACT US]
J-PARC Center Users’ Office
For Experiments Non-Proprietary Use: j_proposal@ml.j-parc.jp
For Experiments Proprietary Use : j_proposal_p@ml.j-parc.jp
For General Questions : jimurisoku@ml.j-parc.jp

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