Eu-ARTECH offers a coherent set of Transnational Access programmes aimed at significantly improving the access of European researchers in artwork studies and conservation to relevant facilities that exist in, or are owned and run, by European infrastructures.

Objectives of the Eu-ARTECH Transnational Access are:
- to draw together as many as possible European cultural heritage facilities under the same circle;
- to enable the European user community to have easy and transparent access to a range of advanced resources;
- to offer an integrated, professional and consistent level of support;
- to improve the data products delivered by European facilities;
- to extend the opportunities of the access to users of EC Associated Countries.

Eu-ARTECH offers access to:

I - AGLAE, a single high-level infrastructure located in Paris at the Flore Pavilion of the Palais du Louvre (CNRS-C2RMF), where non-destructive elemental composition studies are carried out with high sensitivity and precision, in a unique environment of art-historians, restorers and scientists having a large expertise on artwork studies and conservation;

II - MOLAB, a unified group of joint infrastructures, located in Firenze and Perugia (UNI-PG, CNR-ICVBC, OPD, INOA), where a unique collection of portable instrumentations, together with competences on methods and materials, is available for in-situ non-destructive measurements. The access is devoted to artwork studies and/or evaluation of conservation-restoration methods, directly in a museum room, or on the scaffold of a restoration workshop or in an archaeological site.

• Applications.
• Who can apply.
• How to apply.
• Financial Support.
• Proposal Selection.
• Structure and Services of the research infrastructure.
• Call for Proposals.
• Proposal Forms.

• Applications
Request of access to AGLAE and MOLAB can be presented by European users through the modality described below (see: call for proposals), using the specific proposal forms. The request consists of a research proposal which is evaluated and selected by an international Peer Review committee. The users of the selected proposals, once criteria of eligibiliy are satisfied, obtain free access to the awarded facility, including infrastructure and logistical support, scientific and technical support, and (in case of AGLAE) travel and subsistence grants.  In case of MOLAB, the in-situ intervention of the "mobile laboratory" is fully supported by EC.

• Who can apply
User means a researcher within a user group, including the user group leader.
User group means a research team of one or more researchers given access to the infrastructure under the project. Each user group is led by a user group leader.
Typical users are European conservation scientists or conservators who usually carry out studies on materials of artworks and their alterations, or curators and conservators/restorers, belonging to public or private institutions, carrying out studies on execution techniques of artworks or on the artwork conservation states.
Eligible countries:
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom 
and
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland.
Eligible user groups:
-the user group leader and the majority (i.e. 50% or more) of the users must be employed by public or private institutions within Member States or Associated States;
-the user group leader and the majority (i.e. 50% or more) of the users must be employed by institutions in a country other than the country where the legal entity operating the infrastructure is established (i.e. French users cannot apply for AGLAE and Italian users cannot apply for MOLAB, within this programme);
-the user cannot apply for travel and subsistence support to access his/her own facility through this programme.

• How to apply
The applicants are called to fill the experiment proposal and the funding application form to be downloaded  and sent to the respective responsibles for AGLAE and MOLAB (see: call for proposals).
In the form, applicants are asked to indicate : 
-a short description of the work;
-a clear and concise description of the objectives of the experiment, indicating the expected results; 
-the requested techniques;
-the foreseen duration of the experiment; 
-the wished period.

• Financial Support
Applicants to AGLAE can ask for travel and subsistence support through the appropriate Form to be filled in.
Applicants to MOLAB obtain the MOLAB intervention with expenses fully covered by  the EC. Before any MOLAB intervention, the user must ensure, through contacts with MOLAB responsibles, that all the necessary scaffoldings, tables, electrical supplies, and all other facilities, are offered to the MOLAB operators (agreements are established with the MOLAB operators by e-mail, before any intervention).

• Proposal Selection
AGLAE and MOLAB have specific selection panels. The panels are advisory program committees in charge to referee the different proposals. They consist of four members, one of whom is affiliated to the access institutes and three are external experts, recognised for their expertise on chemical and physical applications to the conservation of cultural heritage. The selection panels meet shortly after each of the two foreseen semestral deadlines (usually November 20^th and May 20^th).
Proposals submitted are evaluated purely on scientific merit and technical feasibility.
When a user presents a proposal, help is available, especially for new or inexperienced users. In particular, support scientists are available by e-mail to advise on the technical feasibility of projects before they are submitted. This help ensures that the proposals generated by new users are not downgraded, simply on the basis of errors or misconceptions in the technical aspects. New users whose proposals have not been positively evaluated are asked to re-submit, after taking into account the comments made by the selection panel.
The titles of the projects that are approved and are eligible for Eu-ARTECH TA support are published in the Eu-ARTECH website.
Once a proposal is reviewed and evaluated, the result is communicated to the user's group leader. In addition, feedbacks with respect to the possible scheduling times are provided.

• Structure and Services of the research infrastructure
-AGLAE
-MOLAB

• Call for Proposals
-AGLAE
-MOLAB

EC questionnaire

To enable the Commission to evaluate the Research Infrastructures Action, to monitor the individual contracts, and to improve the services provided to the scientific community, each Group Leader of a user-project supported under an EC Research Infrastructure contract is requested to complete a questionnaire.
The questionnaire must be submitted once by each user group as soon as the experiments on the infrastructure come to end.

ONLINE - Complete the EC questionnaire online.