Users from European organisations continue to be welcome to submit proposals to Diamond. The same funding policy and procedure for expenses remains in place for any visit to Diamond as was in place before Brexit.
Diamond provides Peer Reviewed Users with financial support for their Sessions at Diamond and reimburses certain costs in accordance with the Expenses Policy and this procedure.
This procedure should be read together with the Expenses Policy and has been compiled to assist you to comply with the Expenses Policy and to set out how expenses should be accounted for and claimed at Diamond.
If you submit an expense claim that is not in accordance with the Policy and this procedure, we will not reimburse that expense.
The User Office may on a case-by-case basis use their discretion to assess eligibility where particular requirements arise.
We will reimburse the cost of actual and necessary expenses incurred by certain Peer Reviewed Users for Instrument Time at Diamond to the extent that they are reasonable and wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in relation to your Instrument Time and subject to the following:
At the point of submitting the Session Investigators Form, the Principal Investigator or Alternate Contact will nominate members of the team for financial support, by designating them either ‘Diamond Pays’ or ‘User Pays’. The only Diamond Users entitled to receive financial support from us are those designated ‘Diamond Pays’.
When submitting the Session Investigators Form, the Principal Investigator or Alternate Contact is responsible for registering sufficient competent Peer Reviewed Users to safely resource their Instrument Time and/or other work to be carried out at Diamond. This includes considering necessary rest periods and lone working. It may therefore be necessary to bring further team members in addition to those financially supported by Diamond. Please keep in mind that lone working must be agreed in advance with the relevant Principal Beamline Scientist or Diamond local contact.
If the designation of 'Diamond Pays' or 'User Pays' is not in accordance with this document, the User Office will contact the Principal Investigator and suggest an alteration to the designation. If the User Office does not receive a timely response, we will make the required adjustment so that it is in accordance with this document.
The number of Peer Reviewed Users who will have their expenses reimbursed and/or who will be financially supported by Diamond shall not exceed:
Reimbursement of expenses and/or financial support cannot be shared between Peer Reviewed Users attending a Session at different times.
We have collaborations with the University of Birmingham, the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds and we do not provide reimbursement of expenses or financial support to Diamond Users accessing Diamond through these collaborations.
No financial support will be provided where a user is only accessing an Offline Laboratory outside of an Instrument Session.
Diamond will cover the cost of shipping up to two dewars of your samples (per 8 hour shift) to beamlines and eBIC microscopes if your establishment is in the UK or EU. Details of the shipping arrangements can be found here.
Where you ask Diamond to cover the costs of shipping samples and this is authorised by us, one person fewer (than outlined in section 2 above) will be financially supported by us.
We shall not be liable in any way for any loss, damage or delay arising out of the shipping of samples and it shall be your responsibility to ensure you have adequate insurance to cover these (or any other) eventualities.
Diamond will not fund the cost of consumables as part of your visit.
If required, additional access to labs for peered reviewed Instrument Time may be granted to you before or after your Session, or if you require seperate laboratory access please contact Diamond’s User Office at [email protected]. This will be for a maximum of 2 Peer Reviewed Users for up to 5 days before the Session begins, or up to 2 days after the Session ends.
Unless associated with our scheduled beamtime, no reimbursement of expenses or financial support will be provided by us for any additional access. No financial support will be provided where a User is only accessing an Offline Laboratory outside of a Session.
User claims for reimbursement of expenses must be made using Diamond’s online claims system, which can be accessed via the UAS. Only authorised expenses as outlined below will be considered, please see in particular sections 9 and 10 on the use of taxis and hire cars. If the expenses were incurred by your establishment or a third party, it is their responsibility to raise an invoice attaching all associated receipts and send it to [email protected]. The invoice must reference the Session number and include the names of the Peer Reviewed Users for which the costs were incurred.
All expense claims submitted via the online claims system must be properly identified and accounted for before they are approved. You should only submit one claim per Session and must present your expenses in chronological order so that they can be followed accurately. Each expense line should match a receipt. The receipt dates entered on the claim should show the actual date of the expenditure, not claim submission date. Please do not leave these fields blank and ensure adequate detail is provided to explain the expense.
All claims require an electronic copy of the receipt indicating the cost and for claims where specific authorisation is required, a copy of that authorisation must be included. Where travel is involved, the receipt should also show the start and end of the journey and the date of travel.
We will not reimburse any expenditure without the appropriate receipt. Credit card statements are not receipts and you must always provide an itemised receipt.
Your claim, once submitted, will be sent through the approval workflow and then to our Finance team for payment. During the approval workflow, we may raise a query with you which will be emailed to you through the claims system. It is your responsibility to promptly respond to this query. If a query remains unanswered by you 90 days after the date the expense was incurred and at least 30 days form the date of our query, you r claim will be rejected and you shall no longer be entitled to receive the reimbursement.
You may find it convenient to take a photograph of each receipt as you incur expenses. This is often particularly useful in the case of train tickets (which may not be returned at the end of your journey) or you could choose to exit through the manned gate so that you are able to retain your ticket. Our claims system allows you to upload photos of your receipts in order to match them to your expense items. We will not reimburse your train fare without the receipt for the ticket.
You may request that a business related visit is extended for recreational purposes, or you may ask to be accompanied by your partner or dependants. We will not reimburse or contribute to travel, accommodation or subsistence costs for family members who may be accompanying you and it will only be allowed at our discretion and under strictly controlled circumstances. A request must be made to the User Office for authorisation and the arrangements for separating business and non-business expenditure arising from the visit must be documented. These travel arrangements will be subject to approval by our User Office in advance of any expenditure being incurred and you will be required to pay for all resulting incremental expenditure arising from the visit.
In the normal course of events, we would not expect children to accompany you to Diamond. However, we recognise that in certain limited and exceptional circumstances this may be necessary, and provided this has been pre-authorised by us. The following shall apply:
Please keep in mind that in the normal course of events, children are not permitted on site, either in Diamond House or the synchrotron building.
If you have any queries related to the claiming reimbursement of expenses or financial support from Diamond, please contact Diamond’s User Office at [email protected].
We will endeavour to make payment within one month of your claim being approved via electronic bank transfer and you will receive an email confirming payment.
We will only make payment to the person who incurred the costs. If, for example, one person paid for a meal for two people, that person needs to claim reimbursement of the expense incurred (naming the two individuals who the claim relates to).
We will use our default monthly exchange rate for foreign payments where necessary.
You will only be eligible to receive financial support for travel to and from a Session at Diamond if you are designated ‘Diamond Pays’ on the investigator list for a Session (see 2 above).
Travel will be reimbursed for a maximum of one direct return trip to Diamond from the User’s home establishment or home address, whichever is closer, except where otherwise agreed in writing with the Diamond User Office in advance of travel.
The User Office may ask for a justification for certain requests for funding, where these may be different to what is covered in this procedure. The User Office will use its discretion in assessing such requests and may ask for evidence in support of the request.
Reimbursement of travel expenses will only be provided where:
If equipment is carried Diamond User Office must be provided with robust justification for why lone driving, taxi or car hire is used. If equipment is brought on public transport (train, busses and similar), taxi is unlikely to be approved. See sections on car hire (Sect. 10), taxi usage (Sect. 9), use of own car (Sect. 11)
If travelling between Diamond and Oxford, you should consider using the Science Transit Shuttle. It provides a frequent and express minibus service connecting the Campus with Oxford and the Old Road Campus in Headington.
Congestion and toll charges may be claimed where appropriate, provided a receipt is submitted. Wherever possible, public transport should be used to an avoid incurring these charges. Diamond will not reimburse any fines relating to non-payment of congestion charges.
We will not be liable and will not reimburse costs that you incur in respect of accidents, penalty fares or fines for parking or driving offences. You should ensure that you are appropriately insured and that you pay any such fines or penalties.
Please note that it is illegal to hold a phone or satellite navigation device while driving in the UK.
If, due to a change in Diamond scheduling, a planned journey must be cancelled and rebooked this must be indicated in the claim submitted. Diamond will reimburse both the cancelled journey and the rebooked journey for each person involved. Diamond will not reimburse costs that you may incur as a result of changes that you make to your bookings that are not a result of a change in Diamond scheduling.
We shall not be liable in any way for any loss, damage or delay consequent upon any circumstances beyond our reasonable control. Please ensure you have adequate insurance for your travel to cover these eventualities.
The nearest railway station to Diamond is Didcot Parkway. Purchasing tickets in advance of your journey and use of fixed time or off-peak travel can result in significant reductions in ticket price. Although we expect Users to take advantage of early booking, we recognise that occasionally the logistics of travel arrangements, particularly for Sessions at short notice, means that this is not always viable.
Where possible, you should book well in advance as this helps maximise the opportunity to take advantage of cheaper, fixed-time advance purchase tickets. You should avoid booking open and flexible return tickets because these are generally more expensive than tickets at fixed times. Open tickets can be purchased but the option of buying two single tickets, one fixed and one open for the return journey should be considered.
We do not pay for railcards, but will reimburse Oyster card usage when proof of the cost of the journey undertaken is provided by means of a printed statement.
There are dewar friendly bus services between Didcot Parkway and the Harwell Campus. Please find further information here: Harwell - Times & maps - Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel. We expect this form of transport to be used first.
There is no bus service between Didcot Parkway and the Harwell Campus on a Sunday. Please notify the Diamond User Office if you are arriving on a Sunday to enable taxi provision to be made for you.
If travelling between Diamond and Oxford, you should consider using the Science Transit Shuttle between Monday – Friday. It provides a frequent and express minibus service connecting the Campus with Oxford and runs every 30 minutes. For more information please visit: View your ST1 timetable and fares.
For bus travel between Diamond and Oxford on a Saturday or Sunday, please visit: Plan your journey - Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel.
Taxis should only be used when no other form of public transport is available. Exceptions where taxis may be used are when:
Taxis to or from Diamond must be approved and arranged in advance with our User Office (or Diamond’s EHC Office when the User Office is closed) and will not be authorised where the luggage can be transported by train or bus unless one of the above exceptions apply. Travelling with a suitcase or dewar is not a reason to use a taxi and will not be refunded.
Booking taxis through the User Office (or the EHC Office) enables us to take advantage of a reduced rate and pay the taxi company directly. Reimbursement of claims for use of taxis not approved by the User Office will be limited to the amount that Diamond would have paid if the taxi had been booked by Diamond.
Subject to section 2 above, you may, where it is cost effective to do so, and where you have prior approval from Diamond’s User Office, hire an appropriate car for the purposes of travelling to Diamond for your Session, but solely for the duration of the trip and Session and no longer.
Cars should be hired from large, well-recognised organisations wherever possible and should only be used where cheaper forms of public transport are not available or are not feasible for the business journey to be undertaken. Cars hired for Diamond business cannot be used for personal use and no private passengers should be carried unless this is part of a pre-authorised combined business/personal journey.
You will be asked to demonstrate the need for the car and/or the associated cost savings. You will only be reimbursed for the cost of the car hire and fuel costs related to your Session. For the avoidance of doubt, you will not be paid a mileage allowance.
Fuel costs for cars that you hire will be reimbursed provided an associated receipt is submitted. Unless specifically agreed in advance, Diamond will not pay surcharges such as those incurred for not refuelling hire cars prior to their return.
Please ensure when hiring a car that appropriate insurance is obtained to drive for business use. If your oganisation paid for your hire car, we cannot pay you though your expense claim. In this instance, your organisation should invoice Diamond as described in section 5 above.
Subject to section 2 above and where it is cost effective for you to use your car for travel to your Session, a mileage allowance may be claimed, subject to eligibility. When claiming for mileage, please ensure evidence is provided to reflect cost effectiveness. Please be aware that where there is more than one person driving from the same establishment, it is expected they will car share.
Car sharing should always be applied where possible, and will be rejected if no equipment carried or robust justification is not provided.
Lone driving is strongly discouraged and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis against the capped cost comparisons in relation to train or plane fares outlined in this procedure.
Peer Reviewed Users arriving at Diamond in their own car may claim a mileage rate for each mile travelled between their home establishment and Diamond (calculated using the shortest distance between the two points), and where necessary between Diamond and their place of accommodation, subject always to the claim being only for actual mileage.
The current rates for mileage claims, in line with the HMRC tax free limits, are as follows:
Please keep your own record of business mileage incurred as you may need to provide this information to HMRC and confirm with your insurer that you are insured appropriately to drive for business with the equipment you are bringing.
You should secure low cost airfares by booking in advance and using economy seats. Diamond will only reimburse economy air travel. When booking, please consider the baggage you bring to Diamond and ensure you have adequate luggage allowance.
The following non-exhaustive list of items will not be reimbursed by Diamond: flight upgrades, VIP lounges, priority boarding or seat selection.
The nearest airport to Diamond is Heathrow. It is straightforward to travel from Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton airports to Diamond using public transport. Please contact the Diamond User Office if you are considering any other means of travel between the airport and Diamond.
Diamond’s User Office will book accommodation for you according to the request set out by the Principal Investigator or Alternate Contact on the Session Investigators Form (available from within Diamond’s user administration system).
Diamond will only pay for accommodation for those who are designated ‘Diamond Pays’ on the investigator list for a Session (see section 2 above). Where accommodation is no longer required, please email the User Office as soon as possible and no later than 12 noon on the day before your arrival. Where you fail to make use of the accommodation we have booked and/or no cancellation notice is received by the User Office, a non-arrival charge may be applied by the accommodation provider. Diamond will seek to recover any non-arrival charges that have been applied.
Accommodation requests should be submitted a minimum of 5 business days before your arrival date. While we understand that it is sometimes necessary to change the experimental team, please ensure all changes are made before this deadline and that an email is sent to the User Office setting out the change request. After this deadline it may not be possible to make the bookings you request. No more than three change request emails will be processed per Session. Where accommodation is no longer required, please email the User Office as soon as possible. Even providing a cancellation notice on the due day of arrival will reduce the costs incurred by Diamond.
We will book accommodation for up to 4 Peer Reviewed Users per Session for Diamond Users accessing Diamond through the collaborations that we have in place with the University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham and the University of Leeds. These Diamond Users will be required to pay for their accommodation at the point of use. Should these Diamond Users fail to make use of the accommodation we have booked or leave without paying, their contact details will be passed to the third party accommodation provider in order to secure payment.
Every effort will be made to accommodate Users in Ridgeway House on the Harwell Campus however this is not guaranteed. Where alternative arrangements are put in place, you will be expected to use the bus services to and from the Harwell Campus. Open taxi bookings may be made for you to facilitate easy travel between your accommodation and Diamond where a bus service is not available. Where a partial stay at Ridgeway House is possible, we will do our best to move you from your off-site accommodation if no costs will be incurred.
Proprietary Users are managed by the Industrial Liaison team. Where you require accommodation, please submit a request through the UAS and your accommodation and associated payment arrangements will be managed by Diamond’s User Office and Industrial Liaison team.
If you are designated as ‘Diamond Pays’ on the investigator list for a Session (see section 2 above), you will receive a contribution of up to £18 per day for the duration of the Session. This will be loaded onto your Diamond User card in daily amounts and may be used at the R22 restaurant, in the R1 building, at Diamond’s vending machines and at Costa in the Electron Building. The daily allowance is solely for use during the time of your session. Funding is not available when travelling to and from Diamond nor during time spent at Diamond outside of session time.
For an evening meal taken on-site the night before the start of your beamtime, a contribution of up to £9 will be provided by Diamond. This cost must be self-funded in the first instance. Please seek reimbursement of this cost using Diamond’s online claims system once your beamtime has ended.
Where it has not been possible to provide accommodation on site, reimbursement is available for up to £15 per person, for a meal taken off site. Only Peer Reviewed Users accommodated off site will be reimbursed for meals taken off site. It is expected that you will use the R22 restaurant where possible, taking meals off site only where eating on site would be particularly inconvenient.
The following non-exhaustive list of items will not be reimbursed by Diamond: Food or drink consumed on your journey to or from Diamond; movies; alcohol or accommodation minibar costs; phone call charges; mobile accessories; laundry services; personal hygiene items.
Diamond will provide a letter of support for any visa application that you may need to make to enter the UK once the Session Investigators Form has been submitted. We will however not reimburse any visa or passport costs.
This procedure may be amended by Diamond from time-to-time and it shall be your responsibility to comply with the terms of the amended procedure from the date of publication on our website.
This procedure was last updated on 25 November 2019.
For the purposes of this policy, the following definitions shall apply:
Alternate Contact: Any number of people on a proposal can be identified as Alternate Contacts. Within Diamond’s user administration system they have the ability to carry out all the functions of a Principal Investigator and are considered to do so at the discretion of the Principal Investigator.
BAG Access: A proposal submitted to the BAG access route in Diamond’s user administration system. A BAG (Block Allocation Group) is a group of scientists, potentially from more than one institute, who compose a joint proposal to Diamond, in order to receive regular access to Diamond over a two year period.
Commissioning Call: When an instrument is new or developing a new technique, it is customary to appeal to the user community for relevant proposals. This call for users is known as a commissioning call. Proposals submitted in response to a commissioning call will be in the commissioning access route in Diamond’s user administration system.
Diamond: Diamond Light Source Ltd, a company incorporated and registered in England and Wales, with company number 4375679 and with registered office at Diamond House, Harwell Science & Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 ODE, United Kingdom.
Diamond Users: Diamond Users shall include Peer Reviewed Users, Proprietary Users and the following persons making use of Diamond Facilities: scientists and engineers from academia, research councils and charitable institutions, researchers from commercial and non-commercial organisations and Diamond Employees.
Diamond Employee: Any person working for Diamond under a contract of employment and any Diamond director or office holder.
Diamond’s Instruments: Beamlines and electron microscopes made available by Diamond.
Instrument Time: Time awarded to a Diamond User on Diamond’s Instruments.
In-house Research: The allocation of Instrument Time for Diamond Employees and their collaborators.
Long Term Proposal: A proposal submitted to the long term access route in Diamond’s user administration system. A small number of proposed experiments require regular access to Diamond over a two year period in order to carry out a more significant experiment.
Offline Laboratory: Any laboratory or instruments at Diamond that are made available by Diamond to Users and that do not require submission of a proposal and is not part of a Session. This is typically access to equipment that is not attached to the synchrotron machine, eBIC or ePSIC.
Peer Reviewed User: A researcher conducting research using Diamond Facilities that has been evaluated by others working in the same field, is conducted under an Experimental Proposal and for which there is an obligation to publish publishable results.
Principal Investigator: One person is identified as Principal Investigator on every proposal. They are considered as the person ultimately responsible for the proposal and all experimental Sessions carried out on that proposal.
Proprietary User: A researcher conducting research using Diamond Facilities and for which there is no obligation to publish the results as a result of to an agreement which Diamond has entered into with a third party or where the research is not Peer Reviewed Research.
Rapid Access: A proposal submitted to the rapid access route in Diamond’s user administration system. These are usually for an experiment that needs to be carried out urgently to complete a paper or thesis or to provide initial data or proof-of-principle for a standard proposal.
Standard Access: A proposal submitted to the standard access route in Diamond’s user administration system. The majority of proposals to Diamond are in this category and are usually for one or two Sessions at Diamond in a specific six month time period.
Session: A period of time allocated to a Diamond User which is associated with a Proposal using one of Diamond’s Instruments.
Use of “we”, “us” or “our” shall refer to Diamond Light Source Ltd
Use of “you” or “your” shall refer to Peer Reviewed Users.
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Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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