On the 29th of December 1998 the 5th RTD Framework Program has been approved with a total budget of 15 billion euro. The following information has been provided by Dr Andreas Burkert.
(1) Call for experts:
The European Commission is currently inviting applications of experts to evaluate proposals under the 5th Programme and We would like to encourage you and your colleagues to serve as referees. More information and guidelines can be found in the internet at www.cordis.lu/expert-candidature. The deadline for applications is now the 21-02-99.
(2) ESFON applications:
For us the most interesting programme is the IHP (former TMR) programme which is open for all areas of science including astronomy and astrophysics. We discussed this issue at the last panel session and decided that it probably would not make much sense for ESFON as one very big organization to prepare one very big and inhomogenous proposal with no chance of being successful. Rather, subgroups within ESFON should form naturally, driven by their common interest in a certain topic of star formation. They should get together to prepare a proposal.
This generates a need for ESFON to provide a space where members could discuss possible proposals and build groups. We would like to encourage you to think about possible and interesting topics in star and planet formation that might be considered for an IHP-Programme. Please send (Andreas Burkert) a short summary of your plan and we will post it on a separate WEB-page inviting other ESFON research groups who would be interested in the proposal to contact you.
For example, Andreas Burkert is planning to submit a proposal for an IHP-programme on
"The Origin of the Sun"
which intends to investigate how low-mass, single stars form. If your group would be interested in this proposal, please contact Andreas Burkert. We also will work on a web page that gives you more detailed information of what seems to be the best strategy in writing proposals.
(3) Some hints of what might be important for a successfull IHP proposal:
Just to give you a first idea here are a couple of points that have been important in the past and that seem to be important again:
* The IHP programme covers the period from 1999 till 2002 with a total financial volume of order 1.3x10^9 ECU.
* The funding period of a proposal is also 4 years with a maximum amount of financial support you can request per proposal of 1.6 million ECU.
* 60% of this budget should be used to hire young, international researchers who can be found (e.g. through international advertisements) after the proposal has been accepted. A maximum of 16.7% can be used for administration with 40% of this going to the coordinator of the proposal. The rest is for travels, workshops, publications,... .
* If you really want to generate a network you have to take the burden of being the coordinator. Sit down and write the proposal. Afterwards find partners who you think would fit into the proposal (it's the best if you are already working with these groups) and send them the proposal with the request to complete their part.
* You should find at least 4 groups from at least 3 countries of the EU and EWR (like Norway ...). Not more than 40% of the money can go to groups of one EU country. The other groups in your network can be from non-EU countries if they are accepted by the EU (there exists a list). The total number of groups is limited by the total budget of 1.5 million ECU. Note, that a group cannot get more than 0.2 million ECU which means that you have to find at least 7-8 groups if you want to get the maximum amount of support.
* The most important point in your proposal should of course be the scientific quality. Your partners therefore should be well known experts in the field. Another important aspect is "training" of young international researchers. In addition, it should be clear that the different groups are complementary to one another and really intend to work close together on the project. It seems not to be a good strategy to find alibi-partners from unfavourable regions of Europe (e.g. Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Scandinavia ... ) if they do not really fit in and belong to the best groups in Europe.
* The deadline for the first round of proposals seems to be the end of March 1999.
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