Contributor Saheli Sadanand
With funding cuts a seemingly constant threat to both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation, the U.S. academic research community has been pretty gloomy of late. In a discussion with the editorial board of USA Today on April 23rd, NIH director Francis Collins highlighted studies showing that 18% percent of young scientists are considering immigrating to other countries where research is more stably supported [1]. As a testament to this interest, almost forty people attended a workshop on resources and funding opportunities in Europe.
The workshop was led by Viktoria Bodnarova and Marco Masia. Bodnarova is a regional representative at Euraxess Links North America. Euraxess is a European Commission initiative that posts opportunities for researchers of all nationalities to work in Europe. Bodnarova described Euraxess as well as two European funding programs available under the auspices of Horizon 2020, a seven-year European parliament-backed initiative that has about 80 billion euros available for collaborations and individual fellowships: the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCAs) and European Research Council (ERC) grants. Masia is a recipient of the former. Horizon 2020 hopes to facilitate more efficient, groundbreaking research by providing funding with minimal restrictions.
MSCAs are grants for both doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. MSCAs are available in four forms – innovative training networks, individual fellowships, research and innovation staff exchange and co-funding of regional, national and international programmes.
Bodnarova focused primarily on individual fellowships. Applicants need a host lab or institution that is based in an EU or EU-associated country. Awardees receive 50,000-60,000euros per year and their award package includes a mobility allowance and a family allowance. Bodnarova emphasized that the committees evaluating the fellowship applications are looking for career development oriented proposals with a high impact factor – the origin of the host institution is unimportant. Applications for individual fellowships will be accepted until September. About 10% of these applications are accepted, Bodnarova said.
The ERC awards three types of individual grants – the starting grant, the consolidator grant, and advanced grant. These can go to researchers at various phases of their careers and of any nationality. All grants cover up to five years of research with 2 to 3.5 million euros available depending on the grant. Awards are given solely based on experience of the researcher and quality of the research proposal. There are no restrictions as to area of research nor any explicit requirement for preliminary data. The grant is portable: although a relationship with a European institution is required, individual researchers need only be based in Europe for half of their grant time. The average success rate for ERC grants is approximately nine to ten percent.
In the last part of the workshop, Masia offered a testimonial to the success of the MSCA. He is currently an MSCA fellow at Boston University (his European host is Frankfurt University) conducting research on photo-conversion efficiency in nature and in hybrid polymer/nanotube systems. He highlighted the numerous benefits of the grant, including the opportunity to network with fellows from different disciplines and learn new research and teaching approaches. Additionally, fellows must be independent and learn how to manage a project budget, skills that are important for successful PIs. Masia also mentioned some of the challenges of adjusting to a new place – in his case he came from a warm region of Italy and has since experienced some of the coldest winters on record in Boston! He provided some handy tips for writing a strong ERC proposal, including clearly stating objectives, providing methodology and alternative experimental approaches where necessary and not selling a bad project.
Bodnarova believes that Euraxess and the Horizon 2020 program grants will be of significant interest to researchers based in the United States. “American scientists are definitely looking abroad because of reduced funding in the United States,” Bodnarova said in a discussion following the workshop.
Adriana Mendoza-Garcia, who is finishing her Ph.D. in chemistry at Brown University, attended the workshop and agreed with this assessment. “I’m planning on doing a post-doc next and I’m concerned about the funding here,” she said. “So I’m exploring all opportunities.”
The Euraxess website serves as a portal for employers to post job vacancies (currently there are almost 8,000 job postings). Importantly, the website does not solely advertise lab positions – an appealing prospect for those students and post-doctoral fellows hoping to branch out beyond academia – and it can be used by applicants with a wide range of educational backgrounds. Although registration is not required, it enables users to upload their resumes in a manner analogous to the Naturejobs website. Euraxess also offers a monthly newsletter that includes calls for proposals, additional funding opportunities and more specific information about various member countries.
Helpful links:
European Research Council grant deadlines
#NJCEBoston journalist competition winner Saheli Sadanand recently defended her Ph.D. in the Department of Immunobiology at Yale University. She has written extensively for both scientific and non-scientific audiences on everything from the necessity of vaccines to the value of science education. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, travelling, reading history books (both factual and fictional), eating chocolate chip cookies and trying to convince everyone around her that dinosaurs were the greatest animals of all time. She recommends following the escapee penguin’s lead and checking out Buenos Aires if you get a chance.
[1] The original article about Collins’ discussion with the USA Today editorial board.
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