APPLICATION GUIDELINES

IPR invites applications for international collaborative research. Research should be conducted in the form of a collaboration with at least one Principal Investigator (PI) at IPR, or it should use equipment/experimental facilities of IPR listed in the application guidelines. In the fiscal year of 2025, the research period is from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026. Successful applicants will receive financial support for their travel expenses, up to the amount determined at the time of acceptance based on the availability of the funds. Each applicant should submit an “Application Form” for his/her collaborative research along with a recommendation from at least one PI at IPR. The submission deadline for FY2025 is December 2, 2024. After review, accepted applications will be announced at the end of March 2025. We also consider urgent proposals submitted after the deadline, at any time during FY2025. However, please note that travel support may not be granted for late proposals.

IPR is now accepting non-proprietary proposals for 2025 using the Beamline for Macromolecular Assemblies (SPring-8 BL44XU) operated by IPR. This beamline (BL44XU) is specially designed for data collection of biological macromolecule assembly crystals, such as protein complexes, protein-nucleic acid complexes, and viruses. It uses an undulator as a light source. Detail of the beamline is shown on the website:

MicroED (Microcrystal Electron Diffraction: Rotational method for the electron diffraction) is the crystallographic technique to collect the diffraction images from thin (< 1μm) 3D crystals in the powder sample. Even in the case that the X-ray experiment only showed the power diffraction pattern from the sample, the MicroED experiment may acquire the diffraction patterns from single crystal(s) and solve the structure of complicated natural compounds or synthetic organic materials. IPR implemented the automatic data acquisition system capable of analyzing samples with crystal polymorph or samples with a low rate of crystalline particles. Since the method is still under development, applicants must operate the electron microscopy with the responsible IPR member.