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Want to gain a Marie Curie Fellowship? Our 4-times winner shares his experience

Three EC Marie Curie calls are currently open and having successful won a whopping fourMarie Curie fellowship awards, BU’s Professor Rudy Gozlan (ApSci) shares the secret to success:

 

I secured my first Marie Curie fellow in 2003 and since have repeated it four times with the latest fellow programmed to join Bournemouth University in September 2011 (Polish researcher). What I have noticed in the last few years is a sharp increase in the number of applicants as a result of the level of competition. It is not good enough to have a very good candidate and a very good proposal, you will need to reach excellence in both the candidate and the proposal as only scores above 91% have a real chance of being funded. Having said that, if you secure a fellowship you are guaranteed success during the two years of the fellowship as these candidates need little supervision (they are the elite of Europe after all) and they provide an extremely effective vector for mentoring among your PhD student community. In addition, once they return home they often secure top positions which will help you building an effective network of collaborators for further EU research proposals. So, if you are planning to secure a MCF where do you start?

First, you need to find a successful candidate. They are many ways you could do this, through international conferences when you spot a good talk from a junior researcher, you can approach them and discuss whether they have considered doing a post-doc. Also, you can contact your colleagues in other EU institutions and ask whether they have a good PhD student near completion and offer to develop a collaborative Marie Curie Fellowship (MCF) application, including your colleague in the steering group. Colleagues always like the opportunity to be involved in research excellence and know they would then have a good case for recruiting their student after a two year MCF. However, recruiting the student is only the first step of the process; you now need to develop an excellent proposal. An excellent proposal is not only an excellent scientific case; all categories such as “Impact”, “Training” etc are extremely important. Over the years we have established a template which we improve from year to year (I can provide some of the successful applications if needed). You cannot afford to rushed a single criteria of the application as this will make the difference between being funded (>91%) and failing.

Finally, these proposals are extremely time consuming so it is not something you decide at the last minute. I generally approach my potential students in December (although I generally have a pretty good idea of who I want) and start drafting the proposal in March. I personally never let the candidates develop their own proposal as I often have a better understanding of what could be funded and what could not. It has, for example, to be within your expertise but it also needs to complement the candidates own expertise while still not being too far away from his/her existing area of research. The proposal needs to appear to provide the candidate with a new set of skills that will become relevant when (s)he returns home and help him/her secure a position. As such the proposal needs to clearly demonstrate how this MCF will bridge this skill gap. It is also important to secure a good supervisory team which will provide a guarantee of research quality and give confidence to the reviewers that the student will be in a leading research environment.

Finally, even if you were unsuccessful you shouldn’t ditch your proposal but rather resubmit it the following year with either a new candidate if the candidate received a poor mark (you need to be ruthless) or keep the candidate and carefully address the reviewers’ comments.

Finally, I will bid for another MCF this year with a Portuguese student so if you would like further tips get in touch, otherwise I wish you good luck.

There are currently three MCF calls open – read about them here. If you would like to discuss a possible submission to any of these calls, please contact Corrina Dickson in the Research Development Unit.

Think broader – bid internationally!

Funding opportunities

There are literally thousands of funding opportunities open to researchers in the UK, and many of these are offered by international funding bodies. You can see a basic list of non-UK funding bodies offering large pots of funding here: Large non-UK funding pots 

The chart on the left shows how much income a selection of the regional universities received for research contracts from non-EU sources in 2008-09 (click on the chart to see it full screen). BU has not previously actively promoted these funding pots but they are there for the taking and as our national research funding pots are reducing coupled with ever-increasing competition for funds, we should be actively targetting alternative sources.

In addition to the large funding pots available, there are thousands of funding bodies offering relatively small amounts of funding. If you are a new researcher then these are an excellent way to start/develop your research career. Winning a handful of these smaller grants will put you in a much better position to start winning larger, more prestigious grants, such as those from the UK Research Councils. They will give you project management experience and give future funders the confidence that you are capable of conducting good research and delivering a project.

As the world’s largest funding database, Research Professional is an excellent place to start identifying non-EU funding opportunities. We have put together a guide on how to set up a personal search in Research Professional so you can start to identify and apply to these funding pots. You can download the guide here: RP international funding guide.

To discuss possible international funding opportunities or for support in submitting a proposal contact the CRE Operations team who will happily advise and guide you through the process.

Surely the Creative & Digital Economy is important to BU

Guidance

As BU seeks to position itself as a university that engages in research centred on the ‘big questions’ facing our society, it was a surprise to see that of the 10 proposed key themes, the Creative and Digital Economy has yet to gain any traction amongst BU researchers in terms of shaping the future research agenda of the University. Surely, this can’t the case?

As a former Liverpool FC manager once said “lets look at the facts”:
• Creative Industries contributed 5.6% of the UK’s GDP in 2008
• Exports of services by the Creative Industries totalled £17.3 billion in 2008
• There are approximately 182,000 businesses in the UK Creative Industries Software and electronic publishing are a significant sector
• The RCUK Digital Economy programme provides support for research into how digital technologies can contribute to the economy and society.
• The Prime Minister argued that the Creative Industries is an important growth area in the UK economy.
• The European Commission reports that Creative Industries are among the fastest growing sectors in the EU and account for 3.3% of total EU GDP.

These figures suggest that BU needs to be engaged, and at the forefront of research in the Creative and Digital Economy…there are many big questions to be answered and many opportunities for us to get involved.

We know that this theme has run a series of successful networking events across BU over the past year or so. These have sought to encourage cross school collaboration and generate research and enterprise outputs. We also know that the Creative and Digital Economy theme has previously been defined by BU as “a multi-disciplinary approach to researching information communication technologies, computer games and animation, software development and smart technologies and the rise of intellectual property law in digital media”. Going forward we need to ensure that this focus is fit for purpose.

So I’d like to put a call out to all BU researchers interested in shaping the agenda of the Creative and Digital Economy Theme. Please come along on Thursday 16th June, 10am-12 noon in Room W242.

Dr John Oliver
Head of Research (Acting)
Media School

Tyndall climate centre moves into China

The University of East Anglia says the new Tyndall Centre Fudan will help China shift to a low-carbon economy.  The institution is an expansion of the university’s Tyndall research centre in the UK, in cooperation Fudan University in China.  It has received a 15-year funding commitment from the Chinese central government and the Shanghai City government.

“It is our intention to combine the interdisciplinary strengths of all the UK universities in the Tyndall Centre and the excellence of Fudan University in order to better address some of the challenging problems which climate change is throwing at us,” said Trevor Davies, co-director of Fudan Tyndall, in a statement.  “It is an exciting opportunity for both countries.”

The UK Tyndall Centre is led by the University of East Anglia, in collaboration with the Universities of Cambridge, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Southampton and Sussex.

For St Andrews, the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

St Andrews University is seeking permission to build a windfarm to generate all its power.  The institution’s energy bills have tripled since 2005 to £5.4 million a year, and doing nothing is “not an option”, it said in a statement on 2 June.  The University has submitted a proposal to Fife Council to develop a six-turbine, 12-megawatt windfarm at the university-owned Kenly Farm, Boarhills.

The Scottish National Party has previously pledged to generate 100 per cent of the country’s electricity needs from renewables by 2020.

EPSRC goes for open access

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has announced that it is implementing a new policy to increase research data availability and accessibility.

Under the policy, from 1 September all EPSRC-funded research papers submitted for publication must be made available on an open access basis.  The council said in a statement on 3 June that the rules are not set in stone: it is up to each researcher to choose what approach or forum to use.

FP7 Galileo: Presentation on EGNOS and Galileo

A presentation shown at a recent event by the Global Navigation Satellite Systems Supervisory Authority is now available.  The Executive Director gave an update on the state of play within the Galileo and EGNOS programmes.  Also available is a copy of the GNSS market report which sets out the opportunities for the exploitation of GNSS technologies and applications.

Not yet signed up to UKRO? It takes only a few minutes – read more on our blogpost

Study on: ICT Concepts for Optimisation of Mobility in Smart Cities

The European Commission, Information Society and Media DG, has published a call for tenders regarding ICT concepts for optimisation of mobility in smart cities.

The study will assess the impact of urban policy objectives on the need for research and innovation in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the area of transport. ICT-based mobility services for goods in urban and inter-urban environments should also be taken into account.

Duration must not exceed 6 months
The total price quoted cannot exceed €200,000
Deadlines: Request for Information 21 July 2011 and Submission 29 July 2011

Not yet signed up to UKRO? It takes only a few minutes – read more on our blogpost

Land as an environmental resource

The tenderer will assess current land use, its functions and its potential for improvement, as well as the risks of excess demand for biotic production in relation to environmental policy and recommendations for ecosystem damage reduction and more efficient use of land resources. Funding is worth approximately €220,000 over 12 months.  Further information can be found here.

Closing date: 4 July 2011

Study on “Pressures and Measures in the major river basin management plans in the EU”

The European Commission has published a call for tenders for a comparative study of pressures and measures in the major river basin management plans in the EU.

The study will gather, in a structured way, information on pressures and measures in the river basin management plans, and on the following topics related to river basin management: governance, agriculture, hydromorphology, intercalibration, specific pollutants, typologies, drinking water protected areas, costs and benefits, enforcement and control systems, and innovation. It will also compare the information in order to provide a Europe-wide overview on the aforementioned topics.

The publication will contribute to the development of the 2012 Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Waters.

Funding is worth between €1.45 million and €1.5 million over 12 months

Deadline: 4 July 2011

Find an Expert: Further Comments

A while back I posted looking for comments on which research ontology to use in order to drive our ‘find an expert’ search engine both for external and crucially for internal users.  How can we increase collaboration in BU if we can’t find each other and seek out the expertise we need?  The find an expert function will help with this.  To help the search engine we need to classify our expertise against some form of research taxonomy or ontology; basically a list of subjects and expertise.  In the original post I favoured the Science Metrix subject list as a simple solution.  The alternative is the Library of Congress list which is much more exhaustive and Holger Schutkowski (Applied Sciences) has made a strong plea via his blog posts for this with the idea that we could edit this list down to something more managable, essentially removing those subject areas that we simply do not have at BU.  I am keen to take a decision on this soon so any further views would be very much appreciated.  May be there is an alternative ontology that we should consider for example.

Study on “Towards an overall measurement methodology of the carbon and energy footprints of the ICT sector”

The objective of this study is to identify and carry out critical analyses of the existing methodologies and initiatives aiming at measuring the GHG emissions and energy consumption applicable to the ICT sector (ICT products, services and companies).
The expected result is to get a clear picture and critical comparison of the methodologies and initiatives that exist or are in preparation, in the EU and globally.

Duration must not exceed 7 months.  
The total price quoted cannot exceed €180.000.

Deadlines: Request for information 23 June 2011; Submission 30 June 2011

Further docs: Invitation to Tender; Tender Specifications; Annex to Tender Specifications; Model Service Contract

Research Themes: A Gentle Reminder

A little while back I put out a call for ‘champions’ to help define the emerging BU Research Themes.  The call was heard by some and posts against some of the themes followed, and in a few cases alternative takes on the same theme have been posted which is excellent.  The idea was/is to get different academics to define the themes using a simple template which you can find on the original post [http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2011/05/24/champions-answer-the-call/].  Debate is essential if we are to understand the scope of these themes and help define them further and I am keen for there to be as many different views as possible.  Don’t just leave it to the usual suspects but have your say and help define the theme most relevant to you.  If someone else has posted then post your own views and perspective; be brave and enter the debtate!  We will be closing the debate soon in order to take stock of where we are with each theme.  I still hanker after reducing the number of themes further and one way to do this is by culling those that haven’t attracted much interest.  Towards the end of next week I will try to pull together the different views and provide a briefing document on all the themes.  So please engage and have your say before its to late!

Top Tips for writing LIFE+ Proposals

The EC has highlighted to National Contact Points a number of issues and common problems that have caused LIFE+ proposals to be rejected in previous calls. Below is a generic top tip list for all LIFE+ strands. Specific tips for Nature and Biodiversity, Environment Policy & Governance and Information and Communication can be found in our I Drive folder: I:\CRKT\Public\LIFE Proposal Rejections

  • Ensure proposals provide sufficient detail to enable a proper evaluation to be undertaken.  Explain fully what is proposed.  Many proposals fall down on the lack of detail in Forms B2, which set out the project description and problem to be targeted.
  • Ensure you fully explain the relevance of the proposal to EU policy and why the problem targeted is a concern at EU level.  Proposals are evaluated for European added value, with this criterion scoring up to 30 points at the Award Phase of the evaluation. 
  • Provide more detail on the demonstration/ innovative elements of the proposal, such as explaining why the innovative aspect is innovative in the project’s area; and that the innovation has not already been applied elsewhere.
  • Ensure that agreements on any co-funding are in place before proposal submission, to avoid possible disappointment at a later stage, should the proposal have to be pulled through withdrawal of co-funding.
  • Know your stakeholders before submitting the proposal e.g. get them on board at an early stage; know who you need to work with to deliver project actions.  

Youth in Action Programme – Call for Proposals

Youth in Action is the Programme the European Union has set up for young people. It aims to inspire a sense of active European citizenship, solidarity and tolerance among young Europeans and to involve them in shaping the Union’s future.

It promotes mobility within and beyond the EU’s borders, non-formal learning and intercultural dialogue, and encourages the inclusion of all young people, regardless of their educational, social and cultural background.

The total level of funding available for 2011 is over €122 million and the prioritise are European Year of Volunteering; Youth Unemployment; Inclusive Growth; Global environmental challenges and climate change; Creativity and entrepreneurship; and EU-China Year of Youth.

The call is open to non-profit or non-governmental organisations, local, regional public bodies, informal groups of young people, bodies active at European level in the youth field, international non-profit organisations, and profit-making organisations organising an event in the area of youth, sport or culture. 

The next closing date for applications under its Youth in Action Programme is the 1st September 2011.