FAQs

Our open access data requirements only apply to ROAR’s capital equipment, so it is worth checking if the ROAR equipment you need is categorised as small equipment. If you are only using small equipment for your project, then we only require you to sign our ROAR Small Equipment Declaration on PPMS the first time you request access to any of our small equipment. 
 
For our capital equipment the embargo period for the data is established during the planning stage of the project and is counted from the last day of access to the Facility. This period is typically 12 months. Exceptions to the normal 12-month embargo period can be requested by writing to the ROAR Management Committee (email to roar@imperial.ac.uk) with 1) your proposed embargo period, 2) justification for why the embargo extension is required, and 3) an outline plan (with timings) for steps that you need to take prior to release of data.  
 
If your data cannot be made open access after a defined period then the project may not be eligible for our academic access rates. Pricing for commercial access to ROAR equipment can be obtained by writing to roar@imperial.ac.uk. 

Before being allowed access to the Facility, a detailed Project Plan, a Project Agreement and a Reaction Risk Assessment for the experiment must be completed and approved. This is done through LabArchives, our ELN. (If you do not yet have a Project Folder in the ROAR electronic notebook, request one by emailing roar@imperial.ac.uk). Use the Reaction RA template for the risk assessment: copy the template in your project folder, fill it with all required information and, once completed, sign it and specify a ROAR team member as witness.

If you are experiencing a problem during your booked session on the ROAR equipment then please speak to a team member in person, or send out a call for help on the ROAR User Group on Teams. We will aim to respond as swiftly as possible but please note that there will be times when ROAR team members are not available to respond immediately, and priority is given to users which have pre-arranged to have ROAR support during their booking. 

For more information on routes of help that are available please refer to our guide on “How to get help from ROAR”. To encourage open sharing of information ROAR will prioritise responding to some communication channels over others so if you want a quick response then please make use of our high priority communication channels. Our preferred communication channels are the ROAR User Group on Teams, the weekly ROAR Open Forums and ROAR Consultations.

From November 2019, we have not required researchers at Imperial College London to apply for access to ROAR through a proposal process. For internal users of ROAR capital equipment you just need to have a plan for your ROAR experiment(s), and have signed off Reaction Risk Assessments and Project Agreement documents in LabArchives. These documents can be completed when your team is assembled and ready to begin the experiments. You are, however, encouraged to look at the documents early to ensure that any problems with the Project Agreement do not delay your project. 

The access process is even more streamlined for internal users of ROAR small equipment. For our small equipment you just need to sign the ROAR Small Equipment Declaration on PPMS. 

Our access routes for external academic users are currently being reviewed. Please email roar@imperial.ac.uk to get the latest information on pricing and procedures for external academic access to ROAR.

New in 2022! – ROAR now runs a walk-up LCMS service for our internal user community. Trained users may submit their own samples onto our walk-up LCMS, select from one of ROAR’s pre-approved methods, and the sample sequence goes into the run queue automatically. Our walk-up LCMS includes a column selector with ROAR’s C18, C8 and PFP columns fitted as standard but please do check the signage at the instrument for the currently available columns. There is no need to book your LCMS analysis in advance but please do remember to always log your sample order on PPMS (Agilent 1260 UPLC/SFC-MS Sample Analysis on the PPMS Orders page) so that we know how many samples to bill to your group. Internal users can request training and access to our walk-up LCMS system by joining the ROAR User Group on Teams and dropping us a message there. 

Access to ROAR’s UPLC-QTOF is primarily for high-throughput analysis of large sample sets (i.e. > 48), usually generated using reactor platforms in ROAR. For analysis of smaller sample sets please make use of ROAR’s walk-up LCMS or refer to the Agilent Measurement Suite.  

If you would like any other LC access or service (e.g. LC method development) then please contact us to request information on pricing. 

To access ROAR’s capital equipment, you should still follow the access procedure for Imperial College users found HERE. As part of the Advanced Molecular Synthesis group or React CDT, you may plan your ROAR experiment directly in the React CDT notebook and will not need to request access to the ROAR notebook. Nevertheless, a Project Agreement and Risk Assessment should still be agreed upon with your supervisor and with the ROAR team before attempting to access the ROAR Facility. For more information, read the READ ME page on your ELN.

As for all internal users, access to our small equipment only requires the completion of a ROAR Small Equipment Declaration on PPMS.

To get the most out of your training on any ROAR instrument we recommend that you first develop a plan for your experiments and share this with the ROAR team. This allows us to tailor the training to your specific project needs. 

Training for the ROAR small equipment is very quick and autonomous access approval can be obtained quickly. The training needs on ROAR’s capital equipment can however be much higher and you will need to be able to demonstrate to the ROAR team that you can operate the equipment safely and competently for your project before you will be granted autonomous access. This is for your own safety and the safety of our expensive equipment!

If you are interested in standalone training on any of ROAR’s instruments, then please email roar@imperial.ac.uk to request a price for your proposed training. Please note that attendance of any ROAR training does not automatically grant you autonomous access to our equipment [see above]. 

There might be different reasons for this:

• You are using the US website instead of the UK website. Make sure you are logging in uk‑mynotebook.labarchives.com (if you are in www.mynotebook.labarchives.com, then you are in the US version of the website).
• You signed up for a LabArchives account directly through website instead of following the link in the email. You should have received an email from LabArchives after your account was set up. Please follow the link to activate your account. If you haven’t receive the email (check also the Spam folder), contact the ROAR team (roar@imperial.ac.uk) and we will create the account for you.
• Two different forms of your email address are used to create the account and to access it. Please use the same form of email address to access the account as was used to create your account (commonly, this is the email address you provided to create the account in the first instance).

If none of these fixes your problem, contact the ROAR team (roar@imperial.ac.uk) or the LabArchives support (support@labarchives.com)

We put a pause on many of our open and free workshops (e.g., kinetics, Design of Experiments) during the Covid pandemic to focus on running the Facility during challenging conditions. As we find the new normal, we are considering how we can best offer our popular workshops to researchers across Imperial College London and further afield in a financially sustainable way. If you would be interested in paying to attend a ROAR workshop in any of our capability areas, or your company would be interested in sponsoring a workshop, then please contact us at roar@imperial.ac.uk. If we find there is high demand for a specific topic then additional training workshops will be planned.

Keep an eye on our News and Events webpage, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Twitter to receive updated information on workshops and other events as and when they are announced.

In-situ monitoring of reactions under pressure is technically challenging and requires specialist equipment. Within ROAR we have the Optimisation Sampling Reactor (OSR) which can take samples, for offline LC or GC analysis, and measure gas uptake from 8 batch reactions at up to 200 °C and 27 bar. Our ReactIR and FlowUV can also be used with flow cells to monitor flow reactions at up to 34 bar pressure.

In-situ spectroscopy of high-pressure batch reactions is not currently possible in ROAR. If you would be prepared to pay to access this capability at ROAR then please contact roar@imperial.ac.uk to explore possibilities for ROAR to acquire this capability.