Access categories

Access to CMCA is available under three categories at different rates:

• Internal: UWA Staff, Students, Visitors and Affiliates
• Associates: Australian Publicly funded researchers and Government organisations (including WA Research Partners*)
• External: Commercial and industry 

*WA Research Partners

The WA Research Partner access agreement includes staff, students, adjuncts and clinical appointments from UWA, Curtin University, Murdoch University, The University of Notre Dame and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Under the access agreement, CMCA will invoice the WA Research Partners based on the Associate rate. The home institutes, through their respective Research Offices, will typically cover two-thirds of the cost, passing the remaining one-third directly onto the researcher.  

Access options

Users can access CMCA equipment within a category by paying  in arrears by the hour or purchasing pre-paid blocks of hours.

Option one: Pay in arrears

• Users can pay for equipment access by the hour.

Option two: Pre-paid access

• Users can pre-pay for a block of hours in advance and receive a discounted rate.
• The larger the block you buy, the more the discount.
• Block hours can be used on any instrument within a category.
• Block hours must be used by a single user (no shared blocks).
• Blocks must be used within 12 months of purchase.
• When you run out of hours, you must buy a new block of hours (or switch to paying by the hour).

Would you like staff with that?

If you do not want to be trained and run the instrument yourself, there is the possibility of paying an additional hourly fee for CMCA?s expert staff to undertake the work for you.

For some NCRIS-supported instruments, e.g. ion probe facility, staff costs are included within the hourly rates and no additional staff charges apply.

Purchase instrument time

To purchase instrument time, please download and complete the CMCA payment form [PDF, 570KB] . Pre-purchased hours will be credited to you within 72 hours of purchase so please do not submit the payment form until you have been trained and are ready to commence your work. Pre-purchased hours must be used within 12 months of purchase. Please consider this when deciding how large a block to purchase.