Unlock the Power of Digital Signature Legitimacy for Recruitment Proposal in European Union

How to eSign a document: digital signature legitimacy for Recruitment Proposal in European Union

okay very good afternoon to all of you who are joining us from India a very good morning to those who are joining us from Europe and a very good day for those who are joining us from across uh the globe uh my name is samrat Kumar I the country coordinator of Ure rexus India and uh we're very happy to bring you another exciting webinar on the Marie scosa career postd dror Fellowship call 2024 for those of you who have um joined us in the past know that we have already organized a series of webinars this year on the call itself on hosting offers um today what we're going to do it's a very interesting I would say um information session for you because we're going to look more in depth into this uh marce career postor Fellowship 2024 call uh we have some expert guest speakers with us today who will explain you um more about um how this call is structured how a proposal should be structured what are the evaluation criterias what are the things you should keep an eye on when drafting The Proposal so it will be an excellent opportunity for you to understand more in depth um the the the call and and the proposal writing process and uh with that I would like to welcome our two uh speakers today first uh a warm welcome to uh Christina Gomez who's joining us from Brussels today good morning Christina good morning to of you so let me just briefly introduce uh uh you Christina Gomez uh she is the project coordinator for the eurox worldwide Network earlier she was the Maurice gr K actions National contact point and National representative for Spain so she has been an NCP from 2014 to 2023 at the Spanish foundation for Science and Technology Christina has a wide experience and knowledge supporting individuals and institutions applying to EU programs uh proposal writing and from proposal writing to project management she has been linked to National International initiatives in the field of Human Resources in research and research Mobility for more than 15 years and for us it's really um you know a a great value to have Christina with us because um the next 45 minutes she will really walk with you through the different parts of the proposal writing I also would like to give a warm welcome to Good Friend of Uris India which is Dr iner sahu uh very good morning to you or good afternoon to you inid good afternoon to all yeah welcome back to to the Uris in your webinars indit has been with us as a Marie career fellow in different capacities over the past years uh he's currently working as an assistant professor at the department of medical research at the SRM University in chenai this this completed his PhD from the Tata Memorial Cancer Center in 2015 after his PhD he joined techon IIT in Israel for his post-doctoral research in 2017 inid received his moru postdoctoral fellowship and continued his research at the Tech University in Israel until 2020 as an EU research scientist and during that that 10year Indy could also secure two more uh short postductal fellow ships from FBS and the welcome trust UK and then in 2021 he moved to Harvard Medical School to continue his research until March 20123 so now over the last 13 years he's been working in the field of ubiqutin proteosome systems and protein degradation but for us Indra is a very important research because he has cracked the Marka career postor Fellowship call and he's also been involved in the maruri alumine he's also part of he's also an EV evaluator so he has a very deep insight and expertise when it comes to uh drafting writing a proposal and also looking at the evaluation criterias in we're also very much looking forward you know to your uh intervention your expertise during the next 90 minutes or so thank you me too me too so uh enough talking of me I think it's time now we let the experts speak uh Christina mic is yours thank you thank you samat um I'm just going to check with you that you see the presentation correctly yeah is it okay yeah okay then I can I can start so thank you very much for having me um and it's great to be able to promote again in in a more practical way I would say the the M creaction the postdoctoral fellow ship so uh in these next 45 minutes the idea is to first start uh with doing a little bit of recap of some Theory because I think it's important the previous the previous um webinar took place already a few weeks ago so we just go through the main features very quickly then we'll be talking about the evaluation process and how to write the successful proposal based on the evaluation criteria that I will try to guide you through so just to let you know that as SRA said I have been an NCP for a large number of years but this presentation is actually made with material from the European commission from the MSA net project which supports uh the ncps to be well trained and then from NCP materials from different uh countries so not big Works about these you know these uh mosa reactions are part of the Horizon Europe program which is the funding and workking instrument for the European Union to fund research and Innovation now from 2021 to 2027 with a very high budget of 95 billion euros out of which you can see there that MSA is under the excellent pillar to promote and support and attract and retain researchers from all over the world um what are the main features of the programs in general it is a program about um three three aspects I would say that are are its Court one is the TR training of researchers training not only in scientific skills but also in transferable skills that we make the researchers more employable in the future training their skills but also about Career Development uh and this is essential you will see that uh the program is open to all stages of career now today we will talk about the postdoctoral fellowships but it's also possible for doctoral candidates to participate in projects International projects um it's a bottomup approach that's something that is relevant for pillar one meaning that you as a researcher you as an institution will choose what kind of research you want to pursue uh and you submit your projects um to that respect to the commission there's not specific topic it's open to all the different scientific Fields um it's a program that enhances Mobility it's been the star uh program of the European commission for Mobility for more than 25 years now and Mobility in a triple Dimension International Mobility because you have to change a country to pursue your your C your your research project intersectoral Mobility because even if we're talking about excellent science it is recommended that uh researchers carry up part of their research work in a different uh research environment meaning the non-academic sector private companies or any other um um social actors where some somebody can pursue a career and then interdisciplinary Mobility why we know that it's essential that uh scientific fields and persons get together from different expertise uh parts to be able to cope and deal and confront Global challenges then it enhance also an attractive working and employment condition for researchers you will see that it is essential to have open transparent Merit based Recruitment and that it will support during the the time where the project takes place these uh working and training conditions it has a very strong impact not only on the researchers that will be able to develop their careers but also obviously on the institutions that take part in the project because it helps them International assess their their the scientific base and also in obviously in the rni uh field as such so the call is open it open on the 23rd of April will close on the the uh 11th of September you have the budget there and the information of the timeline of when the results will be out and when you will be able to start your project as a researchers what is this postdoctoral Fellowship about the idea is to support the excellent postdoctural researcher um to do and to carry out creative and Innovative projects research and training projects always in this Mobility triple Mobility Dimension it will support the career development inside and outside of Academia there are two types of um implementation uh Parts in the call you can carry out a European Fellowship meaning you will be able to do your research from one to two years in Europe you will move to Europe into a European institution or you can do a global Fellowship meaning you as a researcher you will be spending part of the fellowship at the beginning one to two years in a third country outside of Europe of Europe and you will end your fellowship with a year return phase in Europe to try to to convey all the knowledge that you gain in this outgoing phase um you as a researchers can only apply for one of the two modes it's not that you have one project and you submit it to the modes no you can only go for one implementation mode and if it is the case that you uh submitted your proposal last year and you want to resubmit this year please have at least 70% of the score to be able to do that res submission meaning the same researcher and the same institution the institution is actually the one who will receive the funds uh and who will recruit you as a researcher and I I am addressing researchers because I think those are the main uh Target uh group that we have with the audience today so the institution is the beneficiary based in Europe in a member state or an associate Associated country to the program we receive the fund and we recruit the research obviously the project can have also Associated Partners meaning other institutions anywhere located in the world where the researchers can do a secon a research state to um improve their training and specific aspects to contribute to do some transfer of knowledge in a specific company for instance no cause for these institutions to participates because they will be covered by the beneficiary again the higher percentage of institutions participating in MSA are mainly academic but it doesn't mean that a non-academic institution meaning a small and medium Enterprise um a private company an NGO a hospital a public administration can be also a beneficiary of these grants so this is just a definition that I leave you there for your understanding meaning that obviously there is a definition of academic and unacademic because I mentioned before that Mobility is a requirement and there for and they kind of a different station with the academic institution universities research centers and the rest of actors where researchers can also develop his and hers his or her research career so I mentioned at the beginning that this is a bottomup program and this mean that you will choose the research that you want to carry out obviously there has to be some order in it meaning that you will get to uh send the proposal to specific uh panel you have have there the eight scientific panels that are available and what I included for you there is the distribution of the 20122 submissions per panel you will see that both the life sciences project and the the social sciences uh projects are very popular therefore there are more funded projects in those specific panels how does it work in reality this this uh this call you have an institution based in Europe and you as a researcher will apply with this beneficial institution in Europe that can be academic or non-academic and the project can also include an Associated partner for instance if it's a global fellowship and you start your research in India you will have an Associated partner in India or if you go in a secondment in a Italian company you will have an Associated uh partner while doing your secondment or placement I will tell you a little bit more about the secondment and placement so I always say that there are two type of researchers in this kind of individual Fellowship we're talking about the researchers who will apply to the call as Dr in did uh in in this case and then you also have a supervisor at the beneficiary and the hor institution who will supervise and Mentor you while you are recruited uh to do your uh MSA project so what is an MSA successful proposal this is much more than a research project actually uh as we mentioned it will um allow the researcher to really improve the research capacities but also will develop complimentary skills meaning something that has to do for instance on how to communicate how to learn about getting funded public how about entrepreneurship what is open science or gender equality research many other aspects not only um science-based uh aspects um it is important and I will think I will say this a good few times during my presentation to have a proper match between the researcher who applies the supervisor at the hor inti to ensure there's a good match and a very clear um transfer of knowledge between these two persons um obviously again it's in invidual project but it's written in a collaborative way meaning the researchers and the institutions have to collaborate at to prepare the proposal just a very short slide on the eligibility of researchers as I mentioned at the beginning this is a project for PhD holders meaning at the time of the call deadline the 11th of uh September 2024 the person applying for the grant has to have already the PHD hold it um defended that their their doctoral thesis um they are and and has and have have a maximum of 8 year of research experience there are exception meaning for instance if you obtain your PhD 10 years ago but you haven't been doing research for whatever reason or if you have had a paternity or maternity leave or any career breaks this will not be counted at research so there are exceptions I will leave you there the guidelines and the self assessment tool for you to know if you're are eligible or not the important also eligibility criteria lies in the Mobility role we mentioned this is a Mobility Program therefore if you want to apply for instance for a fellowship in Spain and you cannot have recited or carry out your work in Spain for more than a year in the previous two year three years to the call deadline for a global Fellowship this rule applies to the Third Country you are going to start your project in nationality wise the European fellowships are open to everybody no restrictions whatsoever when it comes to the global fellowship and I just leave you here the synthesis of everything that I've been saying when it comes to the global fellowships there are mainly open for European researchers member state or Associated Country Nationals to horiz in Europe but in your case for instance in the case that you have carried out part of research career in Europe for five years consecutive years you could be able also you could be eligible to carry out this uh Global Fellowship then we've talked about secondments and placement um as I mentioned the duration of the projects you can see that there the European Fellowship can be funded up to two years and then the global Fellowship you have a three years project now uh during these two or three years project you have cment meaning research days in different institutions to uh to do activities align with the research objectives uh that they enhance for instance the international um dimension of the project or the intersectoral dimension of the project so they can be done at any moment they can be split they don't have to be at the same time and there's obviously a maximum that you can see uh in that case uh stated in the in the slides they can be done in any sector and anywhere in the world now when it comes to non-academic placement the idea here uh for the commission is to somehow support the non-academic sector participation in MSA a uh how by extending up to six month the grants uh in specific nonacademic institutions meaning in companies as I mentioned before smmes large companies museums Nos and these kind of um actors so the placement has to be explained in The Proposal that is very important because it will be evaluated as part of The Proposal okay and it can only take place in Europe in the non-academic sector so the idea there is for people who think that maybe their career can take a different path and will be more entitled to be led in the non-academic sector uh so it's kind of a breach towards the nonacademic um path for for researchers what it's funded under MSA so it's 100% funded cost via unit costs this means that you will be recruited as a researchers will get a living allowance and a Mobility allowance that will be part of your salary in case you have a family you will also receive some uh some funds uh and if your situation changes within the three or two years you can also be entitled to this family allowance this is what you will get as a researcher this is the contribution to the rese recruited researcher and then there's also institutional cost and I saw at the beginning some questions some already advances the the answer the these institutional CS that you get for research training and networking these are entitled there and are included there for supporting any kind of labs cost any kind of secon cost any kind of networking training cost so any activity that you have to that regards will be funded by the project there is a country coefficient uh included because obviously it's not the same thing to have a ground for instance in Spain or in Norway so therefore there's a country coefficient um correction coefficient that is applied to the living allowance this is just for you to have an example a real example of for instance what a post doctoral Fellowship in Spain will be for a couple of years you have the information on the country coefficient uh factor and also on how it is calculated and this is automatic as Lily the NCP from Malta explain in her previous uh workshop together with samrat this is done automatically when you enter your proposal in the system so you have to submit a proposal and the proposal will be evaluated by experts who are those experts and how does it work you have a panel of three people that will be evaluating one specific proposal and the evaluations is done on a individual basis and then there is a consensus meeting where obviously the different views are merged and and it comes they come to an agreement to to have a final decision on the score and on the on the on the proposal um score so you need to know that uh three asers might will have a different completely a geographical and sectorial uh background meaning you can have experts that know very well your research line you can have more generalist aspects are evaluating your proposal and you can also have evaluators coming from the private sector EV Val ating your proposal what does this mean that when you uh when you prepare your proposal you have to prepare it in a way that it's very rigorous very accurate obviously because it's a research proposal but you also have to be able to somehow sell it to a generalist audience so it's not the same thing as writing a a paper again this is the the website the funding attenders opportunities portal we always recommend and encourage people from all over the world to be and to work and to register as an aspect because this is a very good Insight on how to prepare a proposal The Proposal will have um will be uh evaluated against the criteria of Excellence impact and implementation and you see the weight of each of these three components 50% Excellence 30% impact and 20% implementation sorry the scores will go from zero to five in order to obtain the final uh scoring so what I'm going to be focusing on right now is Part B the technical section concretely the 10 pages that you have to submit um to have the project funded and those are the excellent impact and implementation Parts all of this is done online as uh Lely already told you in the previous uh webinar so sub teams from my side to prepare a successful proposal let me dring some more here is a table that includes the information on the three criteria the first one we're going to be talking about is the Excellence and there are four sub criteria you need to be aware of when we talk to including information on the quality and pertinence of the projects research and Innovation objectives this is the first part of The Proposal so it's very it's it's very important to have a first couple of paragraphs doing a synthesis of what your project is going to be about so have a very precise includes in the information of the institutions who are going to be part of the project you as a researcher the impact that is going to be um having for instance um as an introduction catchy and precise we are talking about an Innovative project so you will have to list the objectives list them and specify what they are about uh how by doing delivering having these objectives you will be able to advance the state-of-the-art um and obviously you need to reference the stateof the art in the food NOS the very relevant and updated references will be looked by by the evaluators it is important in this first section to also align um and enhance the synergies that your research project has with important initiatives of the European commission uh for instance the sustain able development goals the missions one of the five missions if this is applicable from the European Union or specific Word program topics that could be linked to your research this is very important to show the evaluator that you know you've done your research your literature research and your project actually it's worth being financed because it will advance in very important areas then you're going to be talking about the methodology that you're going to be using and this is again it's a research and training project so the research that you use and the way you will conduct the research it is important to be explain you need to really go into details what kind of techniques are you going to be using who is going to be responsible for them for instance if you're doing something in a beneficiary but then you're going to secon somewhere when is the time to do then um and they have to be obviously related to the previous section where you have explained your research object objectives how are you going to be delivering through what a specific methodology that has to be concrete and that has to be the one that you need to use for this specific matter then again interdisciplinarity is another triple ey Dimension that we mentioned before so um how will you reach interdisciplinarity of course not all the project will be interdisciplinary but many of them will be so how does it come from does it come from the different technique that you using does it come from the fact that you as a researcher have a very different profile that your supervisor and you are included for instance or you collaborated with uh profiles from different disciplines and they come together using a combined methodology and again it's also important to tackle gender diversity aspects and open science and research uh data management aspect so um I don't know if you're familiar with it but uh gender uh in research search is something that is essential on a horizontal level for the European commission here when we talk about Excellence project and we talk about research uh sorry gender aspects we are talking um about how the gender Dimension is included in your research and Innovation projects so uh depending on your area there are also useful resources for you to have a look at but you need to ask yourself is your project going to affect in a different way women men elderly people children is that the case are you using the correct methodology to compile data for instance um all these questions you need to ask yourself to be able to introduce them in your res methodology and by doing so you will enrich the impact and the content of the research that you carry out this is relevant because um gender aspect can actually be uh important in the case of proposals with the same score when decided when when the the panel has to decide on it open science it's an approach based on open Cooperative work and it's about sharing the knowledge and the tools as early as possible in the process of doing your research so again you have a lot of information of open science ensure that for instance if uh your um your Publications are going to be stored in specific repository you include this information and sure to include the how you're going to proceed with the fair aspects of findable accessible interoperable and reusable research data management in in in your project um then the supervision quality of the supervision training and of the two-way transfer of knowledge this is an essential part of the of the of the proposal I mentioned several times that this is a research and a training project and you need to have both to have balance and a successful project so here the the idea is to include information on your supervisor so you will be able to talk a little bit of the person who is going to be supervising you the expertise he or she has on uh supervising mentoring for instance uh postdoctoral or doctoral candidates and his or her relevant um uh scientific uh background uh you also have to refer to how you will collaborate with your supervisor in what it's called the career development plan this is a document it's not part of the proposal but it will be a deliverable something that you have to submit to the commission during the project where you will include your goals your objectives and the activities that you will be carrying out during the project um as a researcher so the supervisor will be involved in preparing together with you your plan for the two or three years Direction project here you need to specify what kind of training you will get meaning you will get again as we mentioned scientific training on techniques to improve your scientific knowledge for instance on protocols but then you will also be given uh training on transferable skills and those training on transferable skills it's important to involve your institution because they might have a very powerful training scheme on transferable skills and you need to know about it again I will mention what trans skills is about learning how to communicate learning how to find public um fun U Public Funding learning what gender is about in research learning about in um intellectual property for instance if you're tackling something very commercial in your project so be aware that an institution can have a set of transferable skills but it has to be personalized to your needs as a researcher okay and I will talk a little bit more about that when I mention section 1.4 again if in your project you have any specific secondments or placement or you have to do field work for instance this is the place to explain how you're going to conduct these activities essential here to see the much between you as a researcher H and how you're going to be uh delivering your expertise to the institution and the other way around vice versa how will the institution and the supervisor give you their expertise to add to your career development remember that if we're talking for instance about a global Fellowship you have to talk about knowledge transfer um in different aspects the knowledge that you will be conveying to the outgoing uh institution in a third country and how you will transfer this knowledge back to Europe in your Final Phase um what am I insisting that much on supervision because actually when the Horizon Europe program started there were was a strategic document issued by the commission on how a supervisor can provide a better uh supervision or mentor to the researcher that is going to be recruited H this is just a Cod of good practice that you can have a look at maybe at your institution you already have some sort of document but again supervision varies and it varies a lot ing to the scientific discipline but also to the experience and the skills that researcher has um herself or himself so and the last excellent criteria uh it's the quality and appropriateness of the researcher's professional experience competes and skills here you need to demonstrate to the evaluator that you are the right researchers to carry out the activities that you suggest in your proposal so you have to show yourself your background and explain why are you suggesting the the activities that you have includ it and why you can deliver them in a in efficient way here it is important to align this information with what you have in section B2 which is the information related to your CV so ensure that the you know everything is coherent with what you include here and the the different parts of your of your CV included in in parb2 so I'm not going to be uh talking too much about this but in the MSA net project the these project that supports ncp's training what the ncps do is they have a look at the evaluation summary reports which is the document that you will get when you do a proposal and it's evaluated it you will get like a summary of your evaluation what were your strength and what were your weaknesses and this is very important because it give you a lot of feedback so after reading many many many evaluation uh reports this is kind of a summary of the top five weaknesses in the section of Excellence for I think this is for 2022 so I I leave this with you and the present will be distributed but you see that methodology quality of the two WIS transfer objective interdisciplinary approaches those are I would say the five top weaknesses identified so be really sure how you describe your uh methodology you have to be very very concrete uh explain the concepts the challenges okay so you can read through this I think this is um I think it gives a lot of insight of what it's really um you know asked by you now if we go into impact this is a session that has 30% of the total score and you will have uh two specific things to talk about first of all we mentioned at the beginning the measures to enhance the career perspective and the employability of the researcher and the contribution to his or hers skills um you have mentioned a whole Excellence uh section and now you need to explain how a acquiring all these skills will contribute to your career as a researcher how will it impact it you need to do like foresight exercise how and where do you see yourself as a researcher in a medium and long term what are you pursuing will you be able to for instance internationalize your your your network your contacts do you see yourself inside or outside Academia and and it's very important here to be concrete because sometimes one of the weaknesses is that there are very general impact sessions and they have to defer it's not the same thing an engineering project to a social science project for instance if you see yourself outside of the Academia you have to say where I think I can collaborate with an NGO in this field or I think there's a private company that you know um Works in in waste management and I see myself here so you really have to focus and Define your future or or your possible future inside outside Academia inside the organization for instance sometimes this is a a first step to apply for another European project for another European Grant such as the European research Council or this is the way to get in a more Consolidated trainer track into the institution and if the institution has a specific plan to do so you can mention that because this is coherent and this is concrete um so that will be the first one then then sorry the second part will will be on how the project will impact what kind of outcomes and impact will it have and how will you disseminate all of them so here is the part to include um some sort of exploitation dissemination and communication activities and you have to be again it's to be precise will will really help you to have a competitive proposal why because you have to look at what kind of Target groups you're going to be conveying the message of your results or of the project itself and you can reach uh many audien many audiences uh you can reach your research Community colleagues but also end users all also policy makers and also citizens so try to be Concrete in the sense that you have to include indicators okay when you envisage the channels and the activities and the target audience how many people are you going to be reaching them how often will you be doing this kind of activities so this section it's very important to write it together if you do have in the host institution that you're applying with a legal department or a trans technology office this is the people that you need to talk to and be again very specific in the experience that the institution has in for instance IPR issues if this is the case so is important to differentiate what we talking about when we talk about communication dissemination and exploitation one thing is to communicate and you're going to commun communicate both your results when you have them but also the project itself so this type of communication can start from the beginning using specific uh media um channels for instance uh and all of these three activities are legal obligation in the grant agreement that the host beneficiary will sign with the commission then you disseminate your uh research to the public right uh normally dissemination is is focused on uh on your search colleagues so this can be done via papers uh participation in conferences etc etc and you exploit or you can exploit your results meaning these results will use will reach end users will reach for instance um companies private companies so you need to talk about how is this if this is the case how is your plan going to be okay this is um just for you to have an overview or how to proceed on this aspect and then the final criteria for impact will be actually the magnitude and the importance of the contribution to the scientific societal and economic impact so you will have some outputs that are going to be taking place within the project but then you will have impacts that will take place outside of the project when the pro end with the project ends they will impact in a very specific way different aspects so again this is a section to really again look for E policies uh road maps specific road maps of of the scientific field you're talking about because you have to align and you have to convince the evaluator that your project needs to be funded because it will really advance in these specific Fields so you can have different impacts not all of them will apply to your project but obviously the scientific impact will always appay because you're advancing the state of the art you're generating new knowledge Maybe you're improving specific infrastructure in a in a specific institution that can be the case but it might also have an economic and technological impact right because you will create for instance or start the creation of a project that will go to the market you can for instance Implement a protocol that will allow to reduce cost in a specific um uh line of research or to standardize um any type of project that you are working in and obviously a social impact you could be able to bring your results to the policy maker and pro and improve any specific policies uh that could maybe uh change their decision based on your results this is just um some examples for you to understand the differences in in the impacts again have a look here at what the evaluators think can be uh weaknesses in a project right for instance if we see the communication plan the second one it says that and these are evaluators words right to limited scope and reach not sufficiently detail describe limited and not described so this is important for you to try to avoid this kind of comments in your proposal then last but not least and you will hear this again not least uh 20% of the protion of the project will be uh to convince the commission that you have been given resources and you will use them in a very efficient way so you have to talk about the quality and the effectiveness of your work plan but not only the work plan here it's important to be coherent right you will have some cross references here to other parts of the project why because you will include a gun chart that is the table that you have there on the slide on the on the bottom part of the slide that it's kind of an overview for the for the evaluators to see what are the work packages meaning how you distribute your different um objectives of the project and you include it in in several uh work p work packages What's the timing of each of them what kind of deliverables um meaning uh it's it's it's part to report to the commission what kind of Milestone meaning any specific impact point or influence points in the project that will make um something else come after and um so you can see if you have for instance a work uh package that is very overloaded with deliverables and Milestone or even very long in the time of the project and some others are very short some are interacting with each other so you need to Ure that if one word plan where word package finishes the other one starts with no deviation delays or problems so this is seen by the evaluators this is what is going to be measured in the implementation part um then it has to be coherence as I mentioned with the other parts here you will include many of the activities information on the activities for instance on the workshops that you're going to be uh delivering um the participation for instance where you communicate about your project there something very specific called the European researchers night for instance or ambassadors for MSA activities that you will have to include as part of your communication or dissemination activities those will be part of the gun chart um um and then it's not only about explaining the work plan it's also about explaining the risk that can happen in this two or three years project meaning it it's a life project and it's a research project so you're definitely going to have risk from technical scientific point of view but also maybe from a managerial point of view you have to explain what are the risk and you have to include a table with contingency actions to really confront the the risk that you you see and you define and the last part of the implementation part is to hear explain why are you juing an specific HSE institution why do you think is the ideal to do and to carry out your research maybe because it has a specific infrastructure that you have to access um or because the the supervisor is a really the most relevant and well-known um scientific person who can you know who who can you can work with so this is idea if the institution has already have many European project or many msca projects this is also the place to tell uh the evaluators that you're going to be well integrated not only in the institution but also in the research group you're going to be working with remember if you have a project with more than one institution you also have to include here the information of the partner institutions uh it's very relevant to include details because sometimes you have people applying for you I don't know a French institution uh the SS which is very well-known very um recognized institution but you have to say not because it's the S you will get the ground or the MIT you will get the ground you have to explain why and for you in your specific project what's the add value of the institution again I leave you here be aware of the specific aspects that that can be taken into account by researchers by by evaluators sorry and how you can avoid these um these weaknesses um you know examples so just to kind of finalize I will give you a couple of slides on General tips so again uh on a general level it is an individual project that's correct you will be carrying out you are the Star as a researcher of the project but it's a collaborative preparation work you need toate is with your supervisor with the host institution project manager or office managers that might be able to help you that might be able to even read your proposal pres screen your proposal there are many institutions in Europe with a specific offices and departments that can support you in the preparation and in the writing of The Proposal so those are the people you really need to work with and remember the closing date is 11th of September 2024 there are many uh instit ions in Europe that either July they're off or August they're off so be aware of time there who can be persons to also talk with your National contact points for MSA in the destination country that you going to in Europe why because many of them also provide uh prescreening services so it's it's it's good to to consider them when we talk about evaluation I said 50% goes to excellent 30% goes to um impact and 20 to implementation I know this is a the way the score is represented but you really need to give 100% to each of them dedicate time and resources um to each of them because having a very good uh score in excellent will for sure not make you a winner okay because the rest it's also very important and you need to score really really really high I mean I I'm not sure now if Lily uh included some information on on cut of score but I'm pretty sure that our testimony will talk about it so I let him do that do not innovate with a format that's important innovate with your content with your proposal be Innovative be creative in the impact session when you talk for instance about communication and dissemination think about new ways to really promote and communicate your results and Val valize your results but not in the template you have to go to fun intendance portal you have to download the proposal and use that one because there changes from year to year and it's important that you just have the one that it's meant for 2024 I don't know if this is the case it is the same saying in English but in Spain we say an image worth a thousand words use visuals remember that evaluators might have 10 12 proposals to read apart from yours so you really need to stand up from the others so maybe for instance explaining a methodology with a diagram or specific visual will be better than using six seven paragraphs to explain it or you can do both but you can include something visual that it good that it's good for the for the for the evaluators explaining for instance how do the word packages interact between each other that's a good thing uh and then use keywords obviously Innovation entrepreneurship research career things that are very relevant to to your field work and then the last one will be about the project again remember it's a research project yes but but it's much more than that it's a research and training project so you really need to work on both conts and again this is not the Europe uh research Council grants where they're looking really for breakthrough research you have to be Innovative you have to be creative you have to carry out an excellent research but what you carry out has to be feasible within the two three years of project okay and you really need to measure what your ambition is and um make it feasible and realistic a good match your CV doesn't have to be perfect there can be shortcomings the training and the career support you're going to have through your supervisor we really support you and explain the situation and this is the the complimentary match is important coherence throughout the project and also show how this will impact your research career and just to finalize with this is a quote by um our dear Maria salom that I really like I think she said Nothing in life is to be fair it's only to be understood so I hope with this 45 minutes I got you a little bit more of insight of what a good proposal has to be thank you thank you so much Christina I think very well structured and explained uh presentation I think you didn't miss out on anything you know you you from the beginning you really were very clear about you know uh the structure and also you went through different parts of it I think it was very important also last the the final tips you know and also the the keyword to not uh to innovate with the content not with uh with the uh context of of The Proposal so I think this was really very useful and um as you have maybe noticed uh our Pat and Q&A is exploding you know there's a lot of interaction going on which makes us very happy because there's such a strong interest and we can see from the the chat and Q&A that uh some of you already are in The Proposal writing because the questions you are uh posing means that you are already have downloaded The Proposal template and you're working on it but I see also that there are some questions which are more generic still you know there are still some questions about host institution country Switzerland UK so we I tried you know we tried to an uh those more generic questions but um um I hope that Christina if you have the possibility to look a bit into the Q&A and C know if you can like little filter out those questions which are more generic and answer them in the meantime and then at the end we we look at the more you know concrete questions uh towards the proposal writing process but uh once again thanks so much Christina for for your time and for the excellent presentation and we move over to uh Dr Indra who already introduced in the uh beginning of this webinar he's uh mariku fellow himself he's also as an an EV evaluator for Marie K so he has a really deep Insight of about uh this uh specific call specific postural fellowship and uh IND I suppose you have prepared a presentation yes okay thank you the floor is yours yeah well uh thank you very much uh um samat and uh thank you very much Christina for your very nice and so meticulous presentation that covers almost every aspect and I'm really glad that it makes my job now very simple and easy uh so it will my presentation would be a little bit uh kind of an iteration or recap of what actually Krishna uh presented but with some little bit different uh perspective or maybe extra tips uh for uh the for the applicant who are actually uh writing the grant so let me sh share my screen um yeah here it is so I think my screen is well uh so um good afternoon everyone or good morning um people who are actually in a different time zone um my name is Dr indrajit sahu uh currently I'm an assistant professor uh in in the division of medical research at SRM University Chennai uh I was actually one postal uh fellow Mar postal fellow uh from 2017 to 2019 at uh techon Israel Institute of Technology in Israel um then uh after that I I keep working on some of uh the European uh project at techon and uh I I continue uh there until the beginning of 2021 so uh well uh during that period of time during my writing pH and afterward I was actually involved in evaluation of uh the life science proposals for last four years so uh everything whatever I will be presenting today that based on my knowledge my experience and my you know uh lived experience with the proposer uh I will uh suggest some of tips and tricks uh how to write a successful uh proposal well uh before that I would like to give a disclaimer all the information and suggestion in this presentation are not actually official official you official just based on my experience expertise andate knowledge well uh the outline of my talk would be I will give uh some specific tips and tricks for the successful uh maruri uh individual uh sorry it is post fellow now uh post doctoral Fellowship proposal writing and uh some general advice like what Christina did the same way uh well uh before that I would really like to uh suggest you uh all or evaluate yourself at what timeline are you in for the proposal writing so this is what I met based on my experience and uh you know my Lookout uh how the applicant should start the process until the submission of The Proposal so as you know that in April uh uh the application open so so I divided all the months here and during the April the application the applicant should start learning the process then the month of May they should hunt for the uh host supervisor or host Institute then in the month of June they ideally should start writing uh the proposal after talking to their uh concern supervisor host supervisor and in the month of July the proposal should get maturate and should mature and uh you know uh the proposal should be in in advance form and in the month of August it should be in the verification uh stage meaning verif with your uh um supervisor and your peer your colleague your friends in order to find you know to make the proposal perfect and in the month of September since the deadline is 11th of September I I I wouldn't suggest you to submit it on the deadline on the last minute of the deadline but in the first week of uh um the month so that in case you miss something if you remember something that you missed out then you can also refr you can also re uh prepare your uh proposal and resubmit it again because there is no harm submitting your proposal multiple times because the last entry of or last submission will be considered for your uh as a last uh and final propos well evaluate yourself where are you now or where it should be if you are a little bit behind so firsten your sit Bel and uh uh and and gear off well uh so this is just how actually the uh um official site looks like so please take a take a uh a break and uh take a slid I mean uh screenshot uh so that you will learn from the website itself what is maruy a post Fellowship for this uh year 2024 you will get all the information as you want apart from that I would highly recommend uh you this uh mscf postor Fellowship guide handbook uh I put it here for the last year because this year I didn't find actually this is the guide book but you can also find probably in a in a month or in July uh that the guide book will uh will provide you a lot of tons of information about how to write your proposal how to shape up your proposal what not to do in your proposal what are the common mistake people do so you'll get to know each and every aspect that uh Chris already discussed or I'm going to uh um discuss in my in my presentation but having this PDF which is 44 page it is like a kind of a savior for all the uh um for applicants it helped me a lot so in my personal experience I I really uh get a lot of uh I mean very important information uh for my uh proposal writing well uh as you know uh Krishna already mentioned the proposal would be like uh it's mostly divided into part a and Part B part A is mostly uh kind of an includes administrative and financial information about the host Institute uh about the researcher that you put online but uh coming to the uh the next part which is part B that is actually the important part which you are going to write in a particular format that is given which is called a template for this Proposal Part B and you you you follow the instructions and start writing Part B again is divided into two section part B1 and part B2 mostly part B1 is very important because it has a uh uh page limit which is 10 pages you have to write about your proposal scientific part and the non-scientific part which is the training part everything within the 10 pages uh limit if you exceed the extra pages of the Beyond 10 pages will not be available for the evaluator what what soever so be careful that you finish your proposal within the 10 page of limit and the part B mostly contain the researchers uh CV and extra information about U the institution the infrastructure what is available for the research proposal and uh be uh be aware that part B1 is the is the most important part where the evaluators spent their 85% of their time to evaluate your proposal so you have to be very careful while formulating the part B1 so what is part B1 means how it is evaluated as you have already seen from the last presentation that it is divided into three parts three section Excellence impact and implementation uh and it is given like 50% 30% and 20% as you already know that so although they are given wees ing to their evaluation but you definitely have to give you 100% to make each and every section uh very appropriate and uh to the mark So for your uh for your easiness I just put how you will actually divide your 10 pages in uh and and uh divide the three section into this uh page uh counts I would suggest that take five to six pages uh spent for excellence part then two to three pages for the impact part and for the implementation part uh two pages or one and a half pages would be enough for uh uh for all the section then uh then what are the criteria actually you need to include uh for uh those uh three sections the Excellence section which actually uh carries 50% weage have four criteria as you can see here we'll discuss it about little little bit more uh and in Impact section there are three criteria and in implementation section there are two criteria so let's uh uh learn one by one in in every detail so first criteria I will not suggest you again whatever actually or I will not reiterate everything what Christin already suggested I'll will give you some extra tips how to actually make it perfect and make it really nice uh for the evaluator to evaluate this uh easily so uh criteria 1.1 in the Excellence part is actually the introduction part and uh your rational of the project and how you're going to plan to execute it this is this is the first uh uh criteria it's a kind of include the short introduction mention the Gap in the research and your innovation in to fill the Gap and uh you have then you you should also need to write the objectives which are realistic in achievable they can achievable within the 2 years of your project or three years of the project in case of global Fellowship do not exceed more than four objectives so make it 3 to four that is really I have seen uh most of the proposal having uh 3 to four objective then if there are already or some related work or some initial preliminary work has been already started in the supervisor lab or by yourself mentioning that really helped the evaluator to understand to to actually evaluate you as an applicant and the host Institute as an host lab that they have already the experience but it is not mandatory but makes the evaluation a bit easy then as uh Christina said victorial representation of the main goal and idea is really helpful in in this section to uh to provide uh the you know general idea to the evaluator that what are you what are you talking about in uh in in or what you will be going to talk about in your rest of the pages then uh another uh thing I would suggest you that you can in in between your writing don't make it very you know monotonous you can make some important things uh as bold or italic or underline something sometimes you can also make it by color do not use multicolor uh to highlight uh the vital statements or phrases in your uh section then in criteria two 1.2 it mostly uh talk about the objective sorry uh the methodology meaning the plan of work how are you going to do that what are the experiments what are the methodology strategies you have planning to do that comes into this criteria including uh the interdisciplinarity matter and the gender Dimension and open science practice well uh so here you will actually be focusing on how the research project will be carried out the plan of work is important here then again if you can also represent your plan of work in pictures then you can I would suggest you always associate with the work packages with the objective so what is work package we'll learn in the implementation section uh and connect those implementation section the last section to your this objective section so there will be a coherent in your proposal sometimes you can it's also good to highlight or make bold to some of the critical and unique experiments or novel techniques that you are planning to uh uh incorporate or develop it's always better to highlight them then uh also talk about your collaborators in case you have any in this section you are planning to include them but with justification at the same time second man you have also secondment you have already planned to add the secondment into your proposal uh is not mandatory but it's I would encourage you if you can add the secondment uh and definitely with a good justification moving to a criteria three which actually talks about your supervisor criteria three in this excellent section will ask you to write why this you choose this post uh supervisor why he or she is perfect for your project you need to write about the credential of your supervisor and uh like uh what relevant uh what are the award relevant award the supervisor has what are the grants publication what are the experience in training post doogs or students in the lab what are the interdisciplinary collaboration that your supervisor has don't take it for granted that your supervisor is a Noel LA or very famous in the field and it will be known in the Wikipedia or in the website no that's not going to uh make the superv make the evaluators life easy you you have to defend your supervisor you have to write about your supervisor very thoroughly that is very important I have seen many places it's it's underestimated in this section which is a it's a negative Point okay well and if you have Co supervisor explain it then if you have and next important thing is that training program how are you going to get trained for any new techniques or new uh uh soft skill that you are going to learn at this uh institution you need to write that it's not only about doing science it's also about get trained not only scientific non-scientific Department meaning getting the soft skill uh so what are the activities what are the training program you are you are you are planning in the host lab or Institute to get during this uh proposal you need to write in this section as well another thing is that not to Pro Way knowledge transport not to not only to get those uh training to yourself you you need to also write what you are what are you providing in turn to the host lab and to the host Institute that is called toway knowledge transport you need to mention that as well okay the criteria four is it talks about uh uh about yourself you will defend yourself that oh it's not actually uh defending yourself you most likely present yourself in a way that to convince the convince the uh um uh evaluator that you are the best researcher or the applicant for this particular proposal because you have very relevant uh uh criteria credentials very relevant knowledge and very very relevant Publications or experience in the field you have to write it in a paragraph in a very precise manner although you are providing your CB but in this section you have to be very precise and crisp to uh get uh um uh get the point point and prove your point to the evaluator okay moving to the impact section impact section as already um Christina in uh mention the criteria first is how you are explaining that how this research is impacting your long-term goal your career perspective or employability you need to write it very very uh uh specifically and very thoroughly uh doesn't matter you are continuing your uh career in academic or non-academic section but you have to write that down very thoroughly meaning the evaluator will know that okay you have a goal why after this proposal after this uh uh project you are going to you have a you have a definitive goal in your life then uh uh um then in the criteria to where actually you will write uh how you your your research will be communicated to the public or communicated to a particular target audience or disseminate your research to the particular group either the scientific group or the non-scientific group at the same time you need also to write how how the r of This research will be exploited in case you have so be very clear and differentiate between your communication plan your dissemination plan your exploitation plan do not make know uh kind of a uh mix and match and try to confuse uh uh the the evaluator I have seen that uh and uh uh provide indicative uh measures for example one example I'm giving for the dissemination you will write I will go to this scientific conference name the scientific conference and when it is happening mention that uh if you if you know what kind of communication you are going to do you are want you were going to create an YouTube channel mention that this is what going to communicate with the media communicate with a particular group of people uh this this kind of activities I'm going to do for the school students you need to write very specifically that's what I'm trying to say that and uh in criteria uh three in Impact section uh you need to write what is the impact what is the impact of your research to the scientific Society to the uh to the common society and what is the economic impact of your research I'm not not saying that you should have all the impact for for your proposal because all proposals are different we cannot expect all three impact should come out of uh the proposal but nevertheless the scientific impact should be kind of a definitive thing will definitely be there because it's scientific impact means increasing the knowledge as Christian said but at the same time you can also have technological impact or the societal impact or economic impact you can if you have if you think you have just write it if not do mention that it might have indirect impact it might indirect impact the economic and societal benefit uh in future okay the implementation part is all about how you are going to implement whatever you have mentioned in your uh Excellence part so here it it's it's a kind of uh giving the work plan in every detail so you have to divide your work plan meaning your uh objectives to into work packages or also include also the training as well in work packages always associate your work package to the objectives uh whenever you can you know you you can uh uh in the text and mention the timeline the person hour sorry and very meticulously in the grand chart so you're going to give a tabary form which is called a grand chart where you actually mention the timeline of each each and every work packages or the objective need to mention as well the deliverables when you are going expecting any publication or what are the Milestones any dissemination communication activities you are planning to do mention in the timeline in the grand chat that is very important and be realistic do not over ambitiously mention that you can finish uh five years work in a twoe and another thing is that discuss this experimental and management risk every scientific research definitely have some risk when it start because you cannot foresee everything that is happening uh during the scientific research if you have do mention it uh that these are the minor uh risk and you can you have a contingency plan you have alternative plan to overcome that risk but you need to mention that and you should have a contingency plan very clearly or alternative plan very clearly mentioned in the uh in the section and criteria and two is something like you need to write about your host institution what are the infrastructure or Administration that is providing uh that is very reachable to you for to execute this uh propal well uh uh with a few more slides I will finish uh in two three minutes uh but I just want to give you an idea that when you are writing your proposal don't don't think that Maric cury or the evaluator will only judge your your science it's not uh this is not an ERC Grant this is not an advanced uh scientific Grant this is a grant for a post talk meaning the evaluator will judge your ability of doing science based on how meticulously you have described your plan ideas and you presented your execution plan very thoroughly so that's how the evaluator evaluate you not about the science because we really cannot compare to the print proposal based on their science which will give you nature paper or which will give you a science paper no not at all so uh very uh General uh uh tips first it's very important to understand the maricy fellowship do not underestimate any of the policies or any of the section in the merury read each and every section very thoroughly then be honest with yourself do not exaggerate or do not be over ambitious in your proposal that you will write you will uh develop one rocket in order to reach uh the sun then we very specific be very precise and very expressive in your uh proposal do not write jargons then I would suggest you take a break in between while you are writing in this three or four duration of the month uh and uh so that you will when you come back you will come back with a fresh mind and you will find your mistakes if there are any again the next point is write correct rewrite but do not commit silly mistake at all do not make grammatical mistake do not make spelling mistake but because that makes uh an very bad impact into the evaluator's mind that you are not serious then I always suggest start early and submit b