Quite some people are required to run such a complex instrument as an interferometer. Sooner or later you will meet some of these people, but for most of the projects only a few will play an essential role.
At proposal submission time, you will first get in touch with the scientific secretary who will address you a confirmation of the proposal reception shortly after the deadline. Once a proposal is registered it is sent to the members of the Programme Committee (eight members: two from each country of the IRAM partner organizations plus two external) and, at the same time, its feasibility assessed by the scientific coordinator. Technical considerations as observing strategy, observational risk factors and other issues are communicated to the Programme Committee, only if necessary and only at the time of the meeting to avoid any technical remark to influence the scientific evaluation. Shortly after the meeting, during which the Programme Committee expresses its recommendations, a global proposal evaluation is made by the IRAM director who takes the final decision. Thereupon, a notification is addressed to you which contains the recommendations of the Programme Committee and a technical report. If the proposal is not rejected from the beginning, a local contact (a staff astronomer) will be appointed to the project and his name communicated to you.
In the course of the observations, only four persons will play a role for the principal investigator who proposed the observations: the local contact, the scientific coordinator, the astronomer on-duty and the array operator. The local contact, who is the direct interlocutor of the observer, is a staff astronomer whose role is to help the observer in a concerted effort to prepare his/her observations and, later on, in the Grenoble headquarters to help (if needed) the observer in calibrating the data.
Finally, once the observations are completed and before coming to Grenoble, the principal investigator or one of his team members will need to get in touch with two persons: the local contact and the coordinator for the data reduction activities who will finalize the stay of the visiting astronomer at the Grenoble headquarters.
