Apply for TNA

MOSBRI provides trans-national (TNA) access to Molecular-scale biophysics instrumentation and expertise aiming at studying biological systems at an intermediate level between atomic-resolution structural descriptions and cellular-scale observations.

The MOSBRI programme offers TNA to 13 European biophysical laboratories, widely distributed over Europe and selected to ensure a comprehensive portfolio of technologies and expertise. You can read about the access modalities and the submission process on this page. To provide transparency on the decision process, both the moderation and reviewing criteria are described in the guidelines page.

You can find the following information on this page:

• Who is eligible to apply for TNA?
• What is covered by TNA support?
• How to apply for TNA?
• What to expect once a proposal has been awarded TNA?
• Acknowledgement of MOSBRI TNA support.
• Any questions?

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Who is eligible to apply for TNA?

Support for transnational access to one of the MOSBRI partner sites (TNA site) is available to anyone with a workplace/host institution in one of the EU member or associated states. Under current agreements, applicants from the UK are also eligible for support for TNA. Users from other countries may constitute up to 20% of a TNA site’s user base, i.e. where groups have a majority of users not working in an EU or associated country.

As the aim of this activity is to promote trans-national research, only “users” with affiliations from countries other than that of the TNA site can be supported. However, as an exception to this, applications from users within Germany can be accepted for access to EMBL-SPC, as EMBL is an International Organisation.

The person submitting a proposal does not need to be the one who eventually takes advantage of the TNA support, for example the applicant may be a project leader or head of a group, and the “user” a postdoc or PhD student.

What is covered by TNA support?

A proposal awarded TNA to one of the MOSBRI partner sites allows free access to the techniques (or products) provided by the TNA site, for the time (amount) allocated to the project.

Typical access time for MOSBRI projects is 1-2 weeks, but you can read more about TNA site specific access times under “Access modality” on each TNA site partner page. If your project requires more access time, please discuss this with the TNA manager () before proposal submission.

In addition, financial support for eligible and approved users who visit the TNA site covers:

• local accommodation
• cheap airfare/train travel
• a daily allowance for meals is offered by some TNA sites

Typically, one person per TNA visit will receive support; in exceptional cases the TNA site may decide to cover more, depending on budget constraints. All administration related to a TNA visit, including any reimbursement of expenses, is carried out locally by the TNA site. Thus, questions related directly to your TNA visit should be directed to the local contact. However, in case of doubt, you are always welcome to contact the TNA manager ().

How to apply for TNA?

All proposals will be submitted and handled centrally through the MOSBRI website.

MOSBRI provides access in different modes.

Access to MOSBRI pipelines: This means an integrated access to a synergistic set of biophysical instruments and technologies. This will allow the TNA user to fully exploit the expertise of the TNA site to tackle advanced questions. Read more about the available pipelines here.

Access to instruments and methodologies: Use this proposal submission method if you have a focussed research question and already know which instrument/methodology your project needs access to. First select a MOSBRI partner or look at the list of techniques to identify a partner offering the instrument/methodology, read the MOSBRI partner pages with instrument/methodology descriptions, and fill out the instruments/methodologies form.

Common to these two access modalities is that the moderator panel may provide you with feedback and suggestions for other partners or pipelines if the panel views this as being beneficial for the project. Some MOSBRI TNA centres provide remote access with mail-in sample services and is indicated on each partner page.

Project maturation: If you are unsure which pipeline or instrument suite will best answer your project’s scientific question, the moderator panel experts can offer to guide you via project maturation (see the figure on the guidelines page). In this case, only a description of the project has to be submitted.

Products: For example, protein standards that can be used to calibrate and benchmark instruments or for training. Current list of products.

The document below provides a detailed description of the information that will be requested, depending on which access mode is required.

A submission is then started by following the link at the top of this page.

After submission, you will receive an email confirming the submission of the proposal and you can view the submitted information and the current status of the proposal at any time by following the link included in the confirmation email.

Proposals can be submitted at any time, however award of TNA to projects will be announced every 2-3 months. The time between the announcements will be evaluated after the start of MOSBRI.

Timeline: In the first year of the project, MOSBRI aims to relay initial feedback to the applicants within 15 days. This will be evaluated after the first year and will be adjusted according to the needs of the user community. Note (June 2021): During the summer holiday months of July and August, processing a submission may take longer.

What to expect once a proposal has been awarded TNA?

The applicant will be contacted by the TNA site to make arrangements for the visit/measurements for the project. All administration of the visit will be carried out by the TNA site, who will assist users in, for example, accessing the site, arranging accommodation and reimbursement of eligible costs.

These should be returned to the MOSBRI contact at the TNA site and are essential to document your TNA (and any visits), thus also allowing MOSBRI to pay for your travel and accommodation.

User registration form

If you are visiting the TNA site to carry out experiments, the user registration form should be completed during your stay, signed and returned to the MOSBRI contact before departure. If multiple visits are carried out under a single project, then the form should be completed for each visit.

When the project is carried out either partially or fully via remote access:

• At the initiation of the project the user will be asked to electronically fill in the details on page one of the registration form and then send it via email to the MOSBRI contact at the TNA site.
• The TNA site will then enter the details of the activities carried out under remote access on page two of the registration form.
• Once the project is concluded, the MOSBRI contact at the TNA site will sign the form on page 2, scan this in and send it to the user for them to review, and request that they sign (print out and sign) page 1 of the form.
• This signed (scanned) version of the form should then be returned to the TNA site by the user.

Publications, acknowledgement of MOSBRI TNA support, and open access to data.

All MOSBRI TNA users must ensure open access to publications arising from TNA, as recognition for the EU funded free-of-charge TNA provision, either as full open access (gold) or as access to archived accepted versions of the manuscript (green). The only exception to this rule is for users working for SMEs.

We request that any presentation of results obtained through MOSBRI TNA support be acknowledged, citing the unique project number assigned (MOSBRI-202X-YY). Specifically for journal articles the following sentence should be included in the acknowledgements (or funding) section of the paper:

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101004806.

Information regarding any publications (articles, theses, conference proceedings etc.) resulting from TNA supported projects should be submitted to the TNA site, citing the full reference details with DOI.

We would also like to make all TNA recipients (except those from SMEs) aware of the concept of Open Access to TNA generated data, as a recognition for the EU funded free-of-charge TNA provision. This involves:

• The TNA recipients should deposit their TNA data to an appropriate public repository.
• The TNA data deposition should be done after a possible TNA recipient specified embargo period of a maximum of 18 months after the completion of their TNA research or within 6 months of the termination of the project, whichever is sooner.
• The TNA data should be released under the TNA recipient’s name and contact information.
• The TNA results will be fully owned by the TNA recipient.

Some TNA projects may generate data with potential commercial and intellectual value that will be protected while the legal processes with regard to patent application or other protection are ongoing. In particular, TNA recipients from SMEs are not obliged to publish or deposit data resulting from a MOSBRI funded project. However, if they do so, the recipients should acknowledge the support they have received as indicated above.

Complete a questionnaire about your TNA.

To enable the European Commission to evaluate the Research Infrastructures Action, to monitor the individual grant agreements, and to improve the services provided to the scientific community, each Group Leader of a user-project supported under an EU Research Infrastructure grant agreement is requested to complete the present “User Group Questionnaire”. The questionnaire must be submitted once by each user group as soon as the experiments on the infrastructure come to end.

To complete the online questionnaire you will need the following information:

• The grant agreement is MOSBRI (number 101004806)
• Your project acronym (e.g. MOSBRI-21-XX)

The link for the survey is: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/RIsurveyUSERS

Any Questions?

If you have any questions related to TNA through MOSBRI, you can contact