Call for applications: Grants for awardees of the Seal of Excellence for Marie Skłodowska-Curie proposals

August 2nd, 2022

The Romanian Institute of Science and Technology (RIST) welcomes applications for grants for independent postdoctoral research, targeted to former applicants to Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSC) grants who did not receive funding but have received the Seal of Excellence (a score over 85%) for their proposal.

The grants will provide, for 24 months, the following monthly amounts:

  • for awardees of the Seal of Excellence for MSC Individual Fellowships in Horizon 2020: living allowance (salary, total cost): 3357 euros; mobility allowance: 600 euros; family allowance (if eligible): 500 euros; research, training and networking costs: 800 euros;
  • for awardees of the Seal of Excellence for MSC Postdoctoral Fellowships in Horizon Europe: living allowance (salary, total cost): 3322 euros; mobility allowance: 600 euros; family allowance (if eligible): 660 euros; research, training and networking costs: 1000 euros.

Eligibility conditions:

  • citizenship of a European Union country;
  • PhD degree;
  • awardee of a Seal of Excellence in 2020 or later, for an application for MSC Individual Fellowships or Postdoctoral Fellowships that did not receive funding but has received a score over 85%;
  • has not resided or worked in Romania for more than 12 months in the last 3 years.

Grants are available on a first come, first served basis, therefore immediate action is needed for getting the grants.

About 50 such grants are available.

The grants are suitable for research and development projects in fields that do not require complex laboratory setups, for which any equipment and supplies required from the host institution can be purchased using the project’s budget. The institute provides administrative support, office space in downtown Cluj (Transylvania, Romania), office furniture, printers, and utilities corresponding to normal office use. The institute may also provide laptops and computing hardware, subject to availability, and may provide powerful servers for machine learning and scientific computing subject to the project covering running costs.

Applicants are invited to send the following information to grants@rist.ro, as soon as possible:

  • the Seal of Excellence awarded as indicated above;
  • the proposal previously submitted for a MSC fellowship, which was awarded the Seal of Excellence;
  • the Evaluation Summary Report indicating the score for the proposal;
  • the CV;
  • the list of publications, preferrably as a link to a Google Citations or Publons profile.

The institute will preselect applicants within 5 working days from the submission of the above information, and the preselection may include an online interview. The applicants preselected by the institute will be later asked to provide, for the full application:

  • a description of the research to be performed on the grant, based on the MSC proposal but possibly updated to take into account the evolution of the field in the while and possible differences in the project duration (up to 6 pages);
  • a letter of intent;
  • a copy of a national identification document or passport;
  • a copy of the PhD diploma;
  • copies of documents proving residence or work outside Romania for at least 24 months in the last 3 years.

Eligible full applications will be funded in the order of the submission, in the limit of the available budget that covers about 50 grants.