Current policies of the ESO-OPC for special programmes, conflicts, public surveys and joint proposals. (prepared by LT for the Sept 2004 ASAC meeting) At ESO there are five main categories of observing programmes: Normal Programmes, Large Programmes, Target of Opportunity Programmes, Public Survey Programmes, Director Discretionary Programmes. In addition there is a special category for Guaranteed Time Programmes. Host State Proposals (Chilean) are discussed and ranked with all other proposals, but the cutoff line for Host State Proposals can be lower than the other proposals in order to fill the minimum amount of time reserved for the Chilean community. The Observing Programme Committee ranks separately Normal, Large and TOO programmes and recommends a subset of these for implementation. The final decision is taken by the Director General taking into account also scheduling constraints. To evaluate all type of programmes, the OPC uses the advice of a set of Panels with specific scientific expertise. Panels rank scientifically Normal and TOO Programmes and discuss Large Programmes in their area of expertise. The final decision for suggesting the implementation of TOO and Large Programmes is taken by the OPC, which normally does not modify the Panels ranking of Normal Programmes. There is a maximum amount of time which is made available for TOOs (5% of available nights) and Large Programmes (30% of available nights on observatory basis, i.e. not on telescope/instrument basis). - Large Programmes The ESO community is very large and the number of submitted proposals at every deadline is very high (over 700/semester in the past two years), the oversubscription rate is generally well above 3--4 on each telescope. In this situation it was difficult to execute programmes that require a large amount of observing time for several consecutive semesters. It was however recognized that this type of programmes may result in important scientific breakthrough in specific areas of research. For this reason, the Large Programmes category was created. This type of programmes must span from two to four consecutive semesters and should require a minimum of 100hrs (10 nights) per year. A maximum of 30% of the available observing time is reserved for this type of programmes. The concept and implementation of Large Programmes at ESO, first introduced in 1996, was again re-evaluated in 2003 following an ESO workshop dedicated to all Large Programmes implemented so far. A report on that meeting and some considerations on Large Programmes and Surveys can be found in the article by S. Wagner and B. Leibundgut appeared in the ESO Messenger No. 115 (March 2004 issue, see: http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/pubs/messenger/archive/no.115-mar04/ ) - Public Survey Programmes Up to now these type of programmes were submitted as one or more Large Programmes (e.g the ESO Imaging Survey programme). With the construction of telescopes and instruments dedicated to surveys (e.g. VST and VISTA) a new category of programmes was considered necessary. Public Surveys will be proposed answering to a separate call for proposals and will be evaluated by a dedicated Public Survey Panel which will forward recommendations to the OPC. Public Surveys may receive some support from ESO (probably in terms of planning/execution of observations and data management), but this is subject to negotiation between the PI and ESO and will be discussed on a case to case basis. ESO will be responsible for distribution of the survey products in the community. - Director Discretionary Programmes These programmes are not evaluated by the Observing Programme Committee, but by an dedicated committee, the Director's Discretionary Time Committee. The following is extracted from the ESO web pages describing DDT programmes. Up to 5% of the available general observing time may be used for Director's Discretionary Time Proposals (DDTs). A DDT proposal must necessarily belong to one of the following categories: * proposals of ToO nature requiring the immediate observation of a sudden and unexpected astronomical event (clearly indicate the urgency in Box 5 - Special Remarks), * proposals requesting observations on a hot and highly competitive scientific topic, * proposals asking for follow-up observations of a programme recently conducted from ground-based and/or space facilities, where a quick implementation should provide break-through results, * proposals of a somewhat risky nature requesting a small amount of observing time to test the feasibility of a programme. DDT proposals can only be carried out in Service Mode. Very few non-time-critical DDT proposals are foreseen to be approved. Therefore proposers should provide a very clear justification (in Box 8 B) of the application form why the programme should be considered for DDT allocation and was not submitted through the normal OPC procedure. In the absence of such a justification, the proposal will not be considered for DDT allocation, and the proposers will be encouraged to resubmit their proposals for the next appropriate OPC submission deadline. - Dealing with conflicts and duplications The general policy is to avoid strict duplication of observations (same object, same instrument, same integration time), unless justified by scientific arguments (e.g. variability studies). Duplication of science by different groups is generally not considered an issue (especially if different methods are proposed) for normal programmes. If the duplication involves substantial investment of resources (e.g. Large Programmes), the programmes are evaluated by the OPC on a scientific merit and duplication is avoided. A particularly sensitive situation is that of Gamma Ray Burst followup. In this area competing groups duplicate the science and essentially react to the same triggers (detection of bursts from gamma and X-ray satellites, usually the same satellite). The problem to solve is thus who has the priority on the triggers. The solution adopted for the time being has been to assign periods of time during which only one of the competing groups can trigger the TOO. - Joint projects from scientists of different partners In the ESO community this means proposals with CO-Is from different ESO member states or joint ESO member state-chilean proposals or joint ESO member state- non member state proposals. A large fraction of the proposal and most if not all the Large Programmes are joint project. Collaboration is facilitated by the fact that proposals are only evaluated on a scientific basis and an exact time-share among member states is not enforced nor time limits to non-member states are imposed. There are however special additional rules for proposal classified as non-member state proposals and host state proposals. A proposal is classified as non-member state if more than 2/3 of the CO-Is are not affiliated with a member state (regardless of the PI). Non-member state proponents should apply for ESO time if the facilities offered by ESO (telescope/instrument combination) are not available to their community. If a non-member state proposal is equally ranked scientifically to a member state proposal the member state proposal has priority. Host state proposals have a minimum reserved time, regardless of the scientific ranking compared to all other proposals with the condition that a minimum science grade is achieved. A proposal is considered to be a host state proposal if the PI is affiliated to an institute of the Host State.