Guidance notes for applicants

Guidance notes

These guidance notes are designed to assist with the completion of the online NERC GEF application form.

Application and assessment procedures

For all applications for GEF equipment the Project Lead (Principal Investigator) must submit the online application form, together with a Case for Support (unless a Minor Loan where this is optional). The Case for Support must be completed in single-spaced typescript of minimum font size 11 point, Arial font, with margins of at least 2cm. References can be presented in a smaller font size provided it is sufficiently clear to ensure good quality reproductions. Applicants referring to websites should note that referees may choose not to use them. Any proposal in which the Case for Support does not comply with these specifications may be rejected.

Applications for GEF equipment are peer reviewed by the GEF Steering Committee (GEFSC), which meets twice a year. Applicants must ensure that their application is received by the Facility by the requested closing date. The deadlines for receipt of applications to be considered at the bi-annual meetings of the Committee can be found on the GEF website (https://gef.nerc.ac.uk/). Every successful bid for equipment will be subject to the Facility Terms and Conditions.

Application form sections

Section 1 - Applicant details

Please check your eligibility before continuing. For PhD students, please ask your supervisor to apply on your behalf.

Section 2 - Project title and equipment required

A project title should be provided which properly describes the project to be undertaken, an abbreviation will not suffice.

Please provide as much detail as possible for your equipment requirements e.g. for GNSS equipment, please specify the required accuracy. If an RTK survey is being undertaken, radio transmitter licences may be required to comply with the particular regulations of the country where the project is being undertaken.

Please note that applicants making use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) within the UK are required to hold a licence, available from OFCOM.

In the event of the GEF being unable to supply the total desired equipment, please provide details of the minimum acceptable quantity.

Include any specific requirements for peripheral equipment such as the desired numbers of solar panels and regulators etc.

If the equipment currently available from the GEF is regarded as insufficient for an experiment, users are encouraged to include equipment upgrades or purchases as capital expenditure in NERC grant applications. We recommend that anyone intending to use GEF equipment contact the facility prior to submitting NERC grant applications so that any potential equipment upgrades or purchases can be identified at an early stage.

Section 3 - Period of loan

To avoid confusion and potential delays to another customer, it is important to be as accurate as possible with the loan dates. The start date should be the required date of delivery to your institute, and the return date should be the date that the equipment will be delivered back to the GEF premises.

Section 4 - Funding of the project

It is important to provide the requested information on NERC funding (including the NERC reference number), even if pending a grant outcome. Please indicate whether you have met the requirement to have your loan costed into the NERC grant .

Section 6 - Personnel

Please provide details of all personnel who will be using the equipment and whether they have been trained. The GEF will provide operational training in the Facility laboratories.

When requested, but subject to the necessary financial provisions, GEF staff can provide practical help during the early stages of fieldwork. Experience has shown that overseas projects are susceptible to equipment problems arising during transit and GEF assistance is most often required when the equipment is initially deployed.

Section 14 - PhD students

If this application forms part of a student’s PhD, then full details should be provided.

The PhD student(s) should complete a resume of their research related to this project and why this equipment loan is important to their thesis. It should be made clear whether the research is totally or partially dependant on this project.

Section 18 - Research justification

Case for Support

Please submit separately, a scientific Case for Support. The case should include 2 x A4 sides of text with a further 2 sides of diagrams. It is important that the diagrams should be sufficiently large and clear enough to cope with any scanning/reproducibility process. The axes of graphs should be clearly labelled.

To maintain compatibility with NERC Grants procedures, the case must be completed in single-spaced typescript of minimum font size 11 point, Arial font, with margins of at least 2cm. Any proposal in which the Case for Support does not comply with these specifications may be rejected.

The Case for Support should address the following points:

• Underlying rationale, scientific and technological issues to be addressed, relevance to users and the potential scientific, practical and socio-economic benefits.
• Specific project objectives, aims and hypotheses to be tested, including their potential relevance to UK and international research work in the field, relevance to the NERC mission and anticipated achievements and outputs, including datasets.
• Methodology and approach.
• Programme and/or plan of research.

Stage at which current project has reached

The stage at which the project has reached can include funding details – e.g. funding applied for.

Details of deployment area

To assist with solar panel planning etc, it is useful to include approximate lat/lon coordinates or grid reference of the field area.

Data archiving location

As described in the Terms and Conditions, borrowers are required to archive data collected in one of the following publicly accessible locations. Please indicate which location you intend to use.

• In the case of seismic equipment loans, data must be uploaded to the EarthScope (formerly IRIS) data centre within 3 years of completion of the loan.

• Other standard loans must offer their data to a suitable NERC Environmental Data Centre within 2 years of completion of the loan.

• In the case of “minor” loans, the borrower must indicate in their Reduced Scientific Report where the data are stored and how they may be accessed.

Detailed survey procedure to be used

It is useful to provide as much detail of the proposed survey procedure as possible. This could include such details as - tying in with local basestations (GNSS), or CMP surveys and survey layouts (GPR), sampling rates and deployment methods (Seismic).

Processing and modelling

Please include details of any software packages (and which versions) to be used to process the data.

Previous loans and publications

NERC request that the specific GEF loan number is associated with the resulting publication e.g.

Chambers, E.L., Harmon, N., Rychert, C.A., Gallacher, R.J. and Keir, D., 2022, Imaging the seismic velocity structure of the crust and upper mantle in the northern East African Rift using Rayleigh wave tomography, Geophysical Journal International, 230(3), p2036-2055, doi: 10.1093/gji/ggac156, (GEF Loan 1054)