Access to KNMF is granted according to the user guidelines.

• Public work is free of charge and will be evaluated by an independent peer review board. The obtained results have to be published in high impact journals. Proposals must be received by submission deadlines.
• Proprietary work is based on full cost recovery and will not be peer reviewed. The obtained results are treated confidentially and will not be published. Proposals can be submitted to any time.

Proposers from academia and industry either national, transnational European or international can apply for access to KNMF installations.

• Select the type of proposal
• Select the technologies of interest
• Select and contact the experts of the technologies of interest to discuss and define the work to carry out. It is a good idea to discuss your proposal with the KNMF experts before you submit it. For long-term and fast-track proposals a prior discussion with the KNMF experts is mandatory.

• Sign up online for a user account and login
• Prepare online the application form (standard or long-term proposal. For standard proposals a fast-track option is offered at the end of the submission process but is subject to rigid restrictions.
• Prepare offline the experimental method form
• Submit online the proposal
• Make sure that the status of your proposal is "Submitted" (S). When you edit your proposal you have to submit it again.
• Submission deadlines for public proposals are January, 15th and June, 15th each year.
• It is a good idea to submit project reports for your previous proposal(s) and to submit publications that are related to your work at KNMF. With a good report and publication record you can show your commitment to KNMF and positively influence the Reviewers' decision on your new proposal(s).

• Receive information about time allocation
• Visit us

• Prepare offline the project report
• Submit online the project report
• Publish your results and submit your publications to KNMF

KNMFi encourages you to inform us of publications relating to your completed proposals by submitting them to your user account. This does not apply for proprietary (paid) work. Most important are ISI refereed Journals, conference proceedings and books. KNMFi contributions should be acknowledged in all publications (see KNMFi User Guidelines), preferably by adding the supporting KNMFi scientist(s) to the list of authors. It is important that Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMFi) is part of the affiliation. As a minimum, the following acknowledgement is required: This work was [partly] carried out with the support of the Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMFi, www.knmf.kit.edu), a Helmholtz Research Infrastructure at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, www.kit.edu). If acknowledgements are prohibited by the journal, the support of KNMFi should be mentioned in the text.

Publications relating to previous KNMFi proposals will be considered in the Peer Review of new proposals. They are also important in the evaluation of KNMFi as user facility and therefor we are grateful for your support.

Please submit the publication to the KNMFi proposal submission system and link it to the corresponding proposal. After submission, publications are classified with respect to the source of publication and if the KNMFi contribution is acknowledged:

• KNMFi acknowledged (green bullet): KNMFi is properly mentioned in the publication and the source of publication is of sufficient standing (referenced in Web of Knowledge, formerly ISI).
• KNMFi not acknowledged (green ring): no mentioning of KNMFi in the publication however the publication clearly refers to the work and the source of publication is of sufficient standing (referenced in Web of Knowledge, formerly ISI). Please consider to submit another publication which fulfils the requirements of the KNMFi User Guidelines.
• Insufficient (gray bullet with exclamation mark): the source of publication is not of sufficient renown (not referenced in Web of Knowledge, formerly ISI).
• Undecided (gray bullet): publication is waiting for classification by the User Office.

A proposer is the person responsible for a proposal, co-proposers can be named to underline that a working group supports a proposal. Be aware that staff of HGF member organisations are not eligible to act as proposers or co-proposers.

It is required that proposers and co-proposers are registered users of KNMFi. When nominating co-proposers please make sure that they are registered or willing to register, respectively. Please take care that a co-proposer's e-mail address is the same that is used in his/her KNMFi account.

Up to 5 co-proposers can be nominated for a proposal. A co-proposer can be invited by entering his e-mail address into the proposal form. A co-proposer can accept or reject his participation until the proposal is closed for changes after the end of the call.

After being nominated, co-proposers should log into their account, go to the menu item "Manage proposal participations", and choose the status of their co-proposership(s) which remains "pending" until they accept or reject their participation.

Please note that no staff of a Helmholtz Association (HGF) member organisation are eligible to submit a KNMFi proposal or be nominated as co-proposers to avoid conflicts of interest.

After completion of the work the user is expected to submit a Final Report: please log in to the KNMFi proposal submission system, select “Reporting” and create the report by clicking the appropriate action icon.

The final report does not replace a publication. If you are able to publish your results please do not forget to acknowledge KNMFi according to the KNMFi User Guidelines and submit your publications to the KNMF proposal submission system (menu item “Publications”). If you submit future proposals, your publications from earlier proposals may positively influence the assessment by the Peer Review Board.

Finally, please use the “Status overview” menu item to quickly check the status your proposals. If all buttons are green you’re done. You can earn an extra star if you submit a feedback (see action icon) which will help us to assess and improve our performance, thank you.