CUBIC RHUL Charges and Cancellation Policy

This document sets out the scanner charges and cancellation policies for RHUL CUBIC users. Please consult the Scanner booking policy for guidance on how to book scans in the calendar.

RHUL users with external grant funding are charged a flat rate (currently £550/h) for use of the scanner at any time (weekdays, evenings and weekends). Users without current grant funding can scan at a reduced rate (currently 10% of the full rate), subject to agreement with the CUBIC Director (please consult the Staff intranet research pages on Moodle for current policies). Normally, no charge is made for piloting and technical development scans (see the How do I book piloting and development scans? section below).

The MRI Operations Officer and CUBIC director keep a record of all scan hours (required in case a grant is audited) and to enable charges to be made. How scanning time is charged at the full rate is funder specific and is specified (by R&I) at the time the grant is submitted. This can be summarised as follows:

i. Directly allocated funds (‘DA’ typically UKRI) –grants are charged at a monthly flat rate from the time the grant is awarded for MRI access. The PI is able to use the facility for the duration of the grant for the number of hours that were costed.

For example:

A 36 month project has costed 120 hours (@ £550 ph) with £66,000 being costed as a directly allocated budget. A monthly charge (of £1833) is setup by Research Finance from the grant start date for MRI access. The Cubic Director keeps a record of actual usage with the PI having guaranteed access for 120 hours for the duration of the grant. Any unused funds cannot be ‘banked’ as credits for future used once the grant has ended.

ii. Directly incurred costs –(‘DI’ costs eg ERC, Wellcome, other charities, some US funders, etc). A verifiable auditable trail of usage and charges is required. The grant is charged (quarterly) for the actual hours used.

For example:

A 36 month project has costed 120 hours (@ £550 ph) with £66,000 as a directly incurred budget project. The MRI director informs Research finance of actual usage and these hours are charged at the rate specified in the initial funding application. Any unused funds cannot be ‘banked’ as credits for future used once the grant has ended.

Other sources of funding

PhD studentships and other ad-hoc sources of scanner income will be charged in full at the start of the project if possible rather than charged by usage. The student will have access to the scanner throughout the project for the number of hours specified in the application.

Scanning days are shared across the partner institutions and are allocated as follows:

• Monday – Surrey
• Tuesday - RHUL
• Wednesday - Roehampton
• Thursday - RHUL
• Friday – Brunel

RHUL users wishing to scan on other partner’s days may arrange a formal time swap with another partner institution, or make a last-minute booking of unused scanner time by another partner – consult the Scanner booking policy for details. Normal scanning and cancellation charges apply to scanning on non-RHUL days.

Note: Before scans can be booked for a new project, users must follow the steps outlined in the Royal Holloway Users.

Scanning with the support of an MRI technician can be booked directly in the CUBIC Calendar between 9am – 4.30 pm. This is defined as prime-time scanning. In Ari’s absence (usually shown on the CUBIC Calendar) users should check with him regarding an alternative Authorised Person (AP) for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ayan may be available to act as an AP when Ari is not available (check with him to confirm). Users can also use the Participants and APs wanted or available forum on the CUBIC Wiki to search for alternative APs, and also post in the #ap-needed channel of Slack. All bookings in prime time should be treated as firm bookings, this includes a firm commitment from a volunteer (or a strong expectation that a volunteer can be found) and a finalised experimental protocol.

Scanning outside of prime-time hours should also be booked in the CUBIC Calendar. This can be any day of the week or the weekends, on a first come first served basis for all users.

Note: Scanning participants requires two APs (at least one must have fully-qualified AP status) and at least one of the APs must be an employee of one of the institutions. During prime time, Ari (or Ayan) counts as one fully-qualified AP and the user has to provide one additional AP (provisional or full AP); during out-of-hours scanning, users must provide two APs (see: Section 4 of the CUBIC Rules of Operation).

To find out how to become a CUBIC AP please consult the Procedure for becoming an approved MRI operator (AP) and Appendix 2 in the CUBIC Rules of Operation.

Please follow the instructions in the Scanner booking policy document on the wiki.

Booking for pilot work, sequence development and equipment testing should also be entered on the CUBIC Calendar. Bookings can make use of any free time without charge, during normal working hours (please check with Ari before making a booking). The title entered into the calendar should indicate that it is for pilot/development work, for example: ‘Pilot work for Study XYZ’; ‘Sequence development’, or ‘Equipment testing’.

Pilot work falls into two categories as follows:

1) Piloting and development work WITHOUT a participant (RHUL not charged).

Pilot and development work including with a phantom requires TWO AP’s to be present if entry to the controlled area is required (see: CUBIC Rules of Operation, Section 4.1 ). If access to the controlled area is not required then one AP is sufficient.

2) Piloting and development work WITH a participant and data collection.

Once a study is approved and all testing work completed it is useful to collect some MRI data from a participant. Collecting MRI data with a participant would require two AP’s as described in the CUBIC rules of Operation. Some data collection (e.g., up to 5 hours) is normally accepted without charge (RHUL users), but the exact number of pilot hours will normally be agreed during the project planning stages, and can outlined on the Project Proposal form. It is sensible to use a lab member for collection pilot data so they can provide feedback, but if a suitable person is not available then a PhD student, researcher, or staff member from one of the departments of Psychology could be scanned.

Before starting to book participants, it is advised that you arrange a meeting with Ari in the MRI suite to set up a draft protocol for the study, and develop a detailed piloting plan that allows you to: test/develop new sequences, adequately test stimulus presentation, assess data quality/effect sizes your paradigms, and ensure participant comfort for your protocol.

For more info on piloting, check out our piloting guide.

Users can cancel a session up to 48 hours before the start of a booking without penalty (but see below).

a) While there may not be charges for cancellation, it is important to note that slots should be booked only when there is either a firm commitment from a volunteer, or at least a strong expectation that a volunteer will be found for the slot (i.e., based on the size of the recruitment pool for your study). Any users found to be abusing the system (i.e., by repeatedly over-booking and cancelling slots at short notice) are likely to be charged at the full rate. Booking should be realistic and made with a collegiate spirit so that other users can make use of the scanner. Cancellation should always be the last resort, and it is the responsibility of the user who is cancelling to notify other users of this (e.g., via the Wiki forum or Slack), especially if this is within 1 week before the scheduled scan time (for advice on how to avoid cancellations, see 'How to manage recruitment and avoid cancellations' below)

b) Bookings cancelled less than 48h but more than 24h before the scanning time slot are charged at 50% of the full rate.

c) Final bookings cancelled less than 24h before the scanning time slot are charged at the full rate.

d) If another user books and uses the cancelled time slot, no cancellation charges are levied. If only part of the cancelled time slot can is booked by another user, cancellation charges will be applied pro-rata to the unused time.

e) In the event of an unforeseeable and unavoidable cancellation less than 48h before the scanning time slot, such as participant or experimenter illness or participant no-show*, cancellation charges will still apply. However, the user may, at the discretion of the CUBIC Director/Deputy Director, be offered a credit for the unused scan time (unless the scanning slot is booked by another user). This credit can be used at a later date at no additional cost (up until the end of the project). However, the credit will be lost if the second scan is also cancelled, and users can only hold up to 1.5h of such credits at any one time.

f) Excluding the above, charges will otherwise be applied for all prime-time bookings, irrespective of whether the time is used, unless cancellation is unavoidable due to a system malfunction, or in other exceptional circumstances at the discretion of the CUBIC director.

*No credit will be given if the same participant has previously failed to turn up for a scanning session.

If cancelling after within the 48-hour period, please edit the booking to state it is cancelled and remove the booking times selected and state the booked slots. This would enable other users to book the slot. Please see below.

It is important that reminder emails are sent to participants at least 1 week before the scheduled scan time, and again 48 hours before. If participants are very slow to respond or show a lack of engagement, it may be sensible to cancel/rebook to avoid cancellation charges or poor-quality data.

To prevent cancellation charges, we recommend that experimenters try and arrange ‘back-up’ participants, wherever possible.

To notify other users of a cancellation, please post a note on the Scan cancellation & time swap forum on the CUBIC Wiki. It is also good practice to notify other users via the CUBIC Slack channel #participant-cancel, in case others can use it. Contact Carl Hodgetts (carl.hodgetts@rhul.ac.uk) to be added to the Slack group.

Normally, all users have equal priority for booking, however, if a bottleneck develops at busy times, those unable to pay the full rate may have their bookings cancelled, or moved to out-of-hours slots. If required the local management committee (Director, Deputy Director, Head of MRI Research Culture, MRI Operations officer) will discuss prioritisation talking into account factors including: if the project is funded, if the project is underway, (or approaching the end of the study, or PhD project), or if the nature of the project requires it (e.g. repeated testing of the same individuals, intervention studies, etc). If it occurs, notice of not less than one week will be given. For larger studies and those that are time-limited (e.g., studies using weekends) the local management committee may allocate slots in advance.

Yes, charges will be applied for the duration during which the MRI lab is occupied for the experiment (i.e., including setup time).

Prime-time scanning on non-RHUL days is charged at the full rate and are subject to the same cancellation charges as scanning on RHUL days.