Tips & Tricks
Individual Fellowships 2013
IEF, IOF, IIF
Juergen Kroymann, Université Paris-Sud/CNRS, ESE
Abstract
Evaluators will choose proposals based on the Abstract.
They will have to evaluate a fairly large number of proposals in a fairly short time.
Be concise!
Shorter is better!
The composition of the evaluation panel
[- Gender balance]
- Balance between industry and research institutions
- Balance between different membership countries:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg,
Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovena, Spain,
Sweden, UK
Address your proposal to a fairly broad audience!
The Acronym
Try to find a ‚catchy‘ acronym!
Example:
Natural Sources of Aphid Resistance in Arabidopsis
→ SARA
The ‘philosophy‘ of Marie Curie fellowships…
IEF : Intra-European Fellowships
IOF : International Outgoing Fellowships
IIF : International Incoming Fellowships
IOF
IEF
IIF
The ‘philosophy‘ of Marie Curie fellowships…
IEF : Intra-European Fellowships
The goal of an IEF is NOT to provide YOU with postdocs.
An IEF is to help talented researchers in establishing their scientific career.
What can YOU contribute to achieve this goal?
IEF
The ‘philosophy‘ of Marie Curie fellowships…
IOF : International Outgoing Fellowships
What can a fellow learn abroad that he/she will bring back to Europe?
IOF
The ‘philosophy‘ of Marie Curie fellowships…
IIF : International Incoming Fellowships
What can a fellow bring to Europe that does not already exist?
(Resources, Expertise, Collaborations…)
IIF
PONDERATIONS
A common mistake: Most attention is paid to Science and Researcher.
But these two together account for only 50% of the total score.
Pay equal attention to the other parts of the proposal!
A common mistake: Most attention is paid to Science and Researcher.
But these two together account for only 50% of the total score.
Pay equal attention to the other parts of the proposal!
CALENDRIER
Prepare Forms A well in advance!
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
Why can you do the project now?
Why couldn‘t you do the project before?
(e.g., new technologies, preliminary results)
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
International leadership in the field?
Publications with high impact factor (Nature, Science, etc.)?
Highly cited publications?
Awards for research?
Collaborations with top researchers in the field?
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
Track record of previous training achievements especially at an
advanced level within the field of research!
What happened to your previous PhD students and Postdocs?
Did they get a job afterwards? → e.g., Table (Name, Date, Current Position)
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
Track record of previous training achievements especially at an
advanced level within the field of research!
What happened to your previous PhD students and Postdocs?
Did they get a job afterwards? → e.g., Table (Name, Date, Current Position)
The redundancy problem…
Do not leave anything blank!
You could write something like…
„I have already described these activities under B1 ‚Quality of
the group/supervisors‘. In brief,…“
It is important that you tell the reviewers where to find the
appropriate information in the proposal!
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
Transferable skills?
- Language training
- Workshops in science management, group leading, grant writing, etc…
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
Industry sector
- State clearly why there is no exposure to the industry sector
(e.g., because it is basic research)
- The key phrase here is ‚where appropriate‘
- Of course, when there is exposure to the industry sector, describe this
CRITERES D’EVALUATION
This is where you need to help the applicant.
Coming from a foreign country he/she will not have the knowledge
how things work here in France.
Imagine you would go to a foreign country…
What would you hope for?
Some research institutions – in particular from Northern Europe –
have a template to copy and paste into a proposal…
Letters of Recommendation
If possible, provide 2 letters of recommendation!
- Should come from former supervisors
- The supervisors should explain their relation with the applicant.
- Should contain a statement like:
‚I judge the candidate among the top 5% (or top 10%) of their
international (or national) peer group‘
One final word…
Academic Research in Germany
- Universities
- Max Planck Institutes: basic research
- Fraunhofer Institutes: technological development
- Leibniz Institutes: basic & applied research
- and a few others
Academic Research in France
- Universities
- Grandes Ecoles (ENS, Ecole Polytechnique, ESPCI, ESM, ESTP, HEC…)
- CNRS, INRA, INRIA, INSERM, IRD, CIRAD, …
- and a few others
- UMR
Explain structure!
Explain abbreviations!