The Romanian Institute of Science and Technology invites applications for grants aimed at young postdoctoral scientists who wish to lead an independent project within the institute, applying machine learning to the field where the postdoctoral scientist has expertise. The call is open to all scientists, regardless of current place of work, citizenship or nationality. The grants constitute a unique opportunity for a transition from a postdoctoral position to independent research that applies machine learning / deep learning. The research projects will be funded with up to 450,000 lei (about 95,000 euros) for up to 2 years by UEFISCDI, a Romanian research funding agency.
Fields in which machine learning could be applied are, for example, medicine, biology, materials science, chemistry, physics, Earth sciences, engineering, etc.
The projects should comply with the following conditions:
- The applicant should be a young scientist with a PhD obtained 4 to 10 years ago, 40 years old or younger;
- The applicant should have at least 2 publications in journals that are top 50% in their field (in the red or yellow areas in this list based on the impact factor or this list based on the article influence score);
- The project team should include, besides the project director, at least two other young scientists with machine learning / deep learning expertise, among the scientists currently working in our institute, nominated by the institute. They will be employed part time in the project.
Eligible direct expenses include personnel, purchases, and travel. Personnel expenses include salaries for the applicant (up to 55% of the budget, depending on other expenses needed by the project, as decided by the applicant) as well as for the other two team members (about 45% of the budget). Indirect expenses are 20% of the direct expenses, excepting equipment.
According to current tax levels, the monthly salary of the applicant, corresponding to 55% of the budget being used for this purpose, would be about 8300 lei gross, or 5400 lei net.
The expected start date of the projects is May-September 2020.
Our institute welcomes young scientists who would like to apply for this funding and, if successful, will work full time or part time in our institute, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, implementing the funded projects.
Scientists are invited to send us an expression of interest to lead such a project (in English or Romanian) at grants@rist.ro, including:
- a preliminary abstract of the project, including links to public data to be used by machine learning algorithms within the project, or describing methods for obtaining such data;
- the CV of the applicant;
- the list of publications of the applicant;
- a note indicating the 2 or more publications in journals that are top 50% in their field;
- names and contact information for at least two scientists who can provide recommendation letters.
Please send these expression of interests as soon as possible, but no later than September 23, 2019.
Following the approval of the expression of interest, scientists will write the applications with the administrative assistance of our staff and will submit the applications for assessment to UEFISCDI. The applications should be written in English and are about no more than 13 pages long. The final applications should be submitted online, through uefiscdi-direct.ro. The deadline for submitting the final applications is October 15, 2019.
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