Terms of Use

This charter defines the operation and services of the European Ecotron in Montpellier (hereinafter referred to as the Ecotron), including the project submission and selection processes, user responsibilities, contributions to databases, and the promotion of the results obtained.

The Ecotron offers experimental platforms: Macrocosms (12 units, 30 m³, 2 to 5 m² of ecosystem), Mesocosms (18 units, 3.9 m³, 1 m² of ecosystem), and Microcosms (12 phytotron chambers, 0.95 m² of experimental surface area), enhanced by IsoFlux, a gas and isotope analysis platform. More information at https://www.ecotron.cnrs.fr/.

Generally, hosted projects are required to cover the operating costs of experimental platforms in accordance with the auditable pricing published on 15 June 2021 by decision DEC212207 DR13 (available at https://www.ecotron.cnrs.fr/.). This pricing takes into account the operating costs and depreciation of the equipment used, consumables related to the use of the platform, and, in the case of a private company, personnel costs. Projects, particularly those of strategic interest, may receive partial support through a collaboration agreement. A preliminary estimate is provided for the total cost, followed by a final invoice after the experiment.

Article 4 – Project submission and selection procedure

The procedure for submitting and evaluating research projects depends on the type and method of funding for the project, as well as the technical platform selected from among the four currently available.

4.1 Submission of preliminary projects

Before submitting a preliminary project, PIs are strongly encouraged to contact Ecotron’s technical and scientific managers by telephone or email. Preliminary projects must be submitted via AnaEE France’s preliminary project submission platform: https://isia.cnrs.fr/. Each Ecotron platform has its own web page providing additional information on equipment, technical teams and research projects: https://www.ecotron.cnrs.fr/.

4.2 Review and selection of preliminary designs

4.2.1 If the PI seeks external funding to cover part of the costs of the operation, consumables and/or personnel, a project will be submitted to a national or international call for proposals. In this case, the PI must ensure good coordination with the director and staff of the host platform when preparing and submitting the grant application. Projects accepted for funding through this channel will not be re-evaluated by the SC (Scientific Committee).

4.2.2 If public or private funds are available to carry out the project, the project will be classified into two categories, depending on whether it has undergone scientific peer review during the funding application phase.

If the project has not undergone a peer review process to ensure its scientific soundness, it will be submitted to the SC for review. The results of the peer review will be communicated to the project PI within approximately one month. Based on the peer review process, proposed projects will be either (1) accepted unconditionally, (2) rejected unconditionally, or (3) accepted conditionally pending revisions.

If the project has been scientifically evaluated (e.g. ANR, ERC), it will be accepted without going through the SC, except in cases of competition for the same platform and period.

Projects reviewed by the SC will be evaluated based on their scientific and technical merits and their relevance to the objectives of the Research Infrastructure (RI). New projects submitted by a research team that has already benefited from the services of the RI must provide evidence of the publication or promotion of their previous work. The burden borne by the service is taken into account in all cases. When the number of eligible project applications exceeds the service’s capacity, the following order of priority will be applied among the eligible projects:

• projects funded by European agencies to promote the international use of services;
• projects funded by French research organisations;
• projects funded by agencies in collaboration, including with foreign countries; other projects.

Particular attention will be paid to projects submitted by private sector users with a view to transferring research results and mobilising additional sources of funding to ensure the sustainability and improvement of services.

4.3 Project implementation

Once a project has been accepted, Ecotron proposes a date, procedure and budget for its optimal implementation. This includes a protocol, a collaboration agreement and/or secure access to the Isia platform, tailored to the needs of the project and the status of the entities involved.

5.1 Terms of use

Users are required to use shared equipment in a manner that respects the environment, ensuring that the equipment used is kept clean and tidy and strictly complying with the internal regulations and safety rules in force at the site. Users must immediately report any problems encountered when using the equipment to the supervisory staff.

Users undertake to submit the required documents at each stage, to follow the good laboratory practices laid down by each platform, and to ensure that all the necessary safeguards relating to the research work have been taken (application for authorisation, compliance with regulations on animal or plant experimentation, etc.).

Users may temporarily store samples in the Ecotron’s storage areas (refrigerators, freezers, etc.), but they agree to retrieve them no later than six months after the end of the experiment.

After the experiment, users also undertake to present the main results of the experiment to the Ecotron team as soon as the data has been analysed and the main conclusions drawn.

In the event of a failed experiment, followed by a request from the user to repeat the experiment, the following provisions shall apply. If the experiment failed due to shortcomings in the measurements or the design of the experiment for which the user is responsible, Ecotron is not obliged to repeat the experiment (but this will be considered depending on the availability of experimental units, and will incur additional costs for the occupation of the platforms). If an experiment has failed due to shared shortcomings, or mainly due to deficiencies on the part of Ecotron, Ecotron will offer a slot to repeat the experiment at no additional cost, subject to availability.

5.2 Data management policy

A dataset produced by an experiment on an AnaEE-France experimental platform such as the Ecotron consists of data produced by the platforms and data produced by users (DU). The data produced by the platforms includes basic data (DB) characterising the site environment (weather, soil, etc.) and data specific to the experiment collected by the platform (DP) on behalf of the user (gas measurement in a cell, evapotranspiration, etc.). The experimental dataset is then combined with the platform’s basic data (DB) and experimental data (DP) to produce a complete dataset. etc.) and data specific to the experiment collected by the platform (ED) on behalf of the user (gas measurements in a cell, evapotranspiration, etc.). The experimental dataset is therefore made up of the union of BD (relevant to the experiment), ED and UD.

Data from academic projects (but not private projects) are subject to French and European regulations on Open Data. Research data produced by French public research must be structured according to FAIR principles (easy to Find, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). This regulation is based on several national and European directives, which are detailed in the AnaEE France charter (https://zenodo.org/records/8424731).

In accordance with these guidelines, the user undertakes to comply with the following conditions:

provide the platform with descriptive metadata about the experiment (ecosystem, manipulation performed, observations made) to feed into the database of projects hosted by the platform.

distribute the dataset freely and without financial compensation. The DUs may be managed by the platform’s information system when technically possible.

The user may ask the platform manager to delay this opening for legitimate reasons predefined by the platform, possibly in its Data Management Plan (verifiability/traceability maturity, personal data not yet anonymised, ethical reasons, etc.). The time required to carry out these operations may not exceed two years from the end of the research project (hereinafter the ‘opening period’).

The platform retains full freedom to use its basic data (DB) and may freely use the experimental data it has collected on behalf of the user (DP) for the purposes of improving the service.

If the user fails to publish and disseminate the dataset, the platform may disseminate the data it has acquired (DP) after any deadline agreed with the user, as well as any data made available through the publication of scientific articles.

Responsibility for data communicability lies with the data distributor. For each new project, the issue of data must be addressed in a data management plan, developed in collaboration with the user and the platform’s scientific and technical managers.

The datasets produced may be subject to a licence. The licence to be used for data produced by AnaEE-France services should be the “Open Licence” (LO 2.0 licence, ODBL equivalent to the CC-BY licence). For all AnaEE-Fr activities, and in particular the production of data that is immediately part of an international framework, the use of the CC-BY 4.0 licence would be recommended.

5.3 Confidentiality

The project coordinator may specify that the information exchanged between him and the platform during the discussion of the project, and then during the implementation of the project if it is accepted, must remain confidential. If the coordinator is unable to disclose any information about their request to the platform for reasons of confidentiality, the request can only remain a one-off and the service provided will be limited to a service provision without any technological development or scientific contribution from the platform.

5.4 Publication and communication

Users are required to notify the preparation of a publication or communication of their results as soon as possible and in any case before submission. Users undertake either to include platform staff as co-authors according to their involvement in the project, or to cite the platform in the methodological section of publications. Publications of work and experiments carried out on one of the platforms must also include at least the following sentence in the acknowledgements: ‘This work has received government funding managed by the French National Research Agency under the ’Investments for the Future‘ programme, reference ANR-11-INBS-0001AnaEE-Services’, as well as references to the specific co-funders of each platform specified in the hosting agreement. In the case of a service, in addition to the acknowledgements mentioned above, the user shall thank the service used and the operator(s) involved.

Failure to comply with any of these articles may result in the withdrawal of access authorisation to the platform. All users must comply with the charter and personally undertake to respect it.

To this end, he signs the following commitment:

I, the undersigned : _____________________________ ,:

_____________________________________________________________________________ As a user of the equipment at the Ecotron Européen de Montpellier (UAR3248), I declare that I have read and understood this Charter.

I undertake to comply with it and to keep myself informed of any changes to it.

At _______________, the

User signature preceded by the words ‘Read and approved’: