The call 2016 for collaborative projects is intended to encourage collaboration between member laboratories of OT-Med and to boost the excellence of their research on topics, which have been acknowledged as strategic during the progress meeting organized in January 2016.
Unlike the previous years, this time the participative procedure has been launched by OT-Med in November 2015 for the construction of collaborative projects and the list of preselected projects has already been established. These projects have been discussed during the OT-Med Progress Meeting, which took place from 6 to 8 January 2016. ONLY THE SCIENTIFIC PROJECTS INCLUDED IN THIS PROCEDURE MAY BE SUBMITTED (click here for the list of projects). NO NEW SUBMISSIONS ARE POSSIBLE. All projects must be interdisciplinary and must involve several OT-Med partners. Multi-annual projects including PhD and post-doc fellowships are welcome. The duration of the project must be compatible with the duration of the requested fellowship. We particularly appreciate co-funding (region PACA, ANR, CESAB, EU …).
This call concerns also support to scientific events and mobility fellowships (ingoing and outgoing). No procedure prior to this call has been launched. Proposals involving national and international actions, including Southern countries, are particularly welcome.
A total amount of 140 K€ is available for operating expenses every year up to 2019. For the multi-annual projects, this amount concerns the costs for the first year. The remaining cost being deferred to the 2017 budget. In addition, a maximum of 9 fellowships (PhD or postdoc) will be funded until the end of the Labex (2019). The number of fellowships attributed in this call depends on the excellence of the research projects.
Context
The project OT-Med is a « labex » funded by the French national programme « Investissements d'Avenir » for the period 2012-2019 (http://www.otmed.fr). OT-Med has as its objective to study the impacts of environmental change (climate, land use etc.) on ecosystem resources and services, as well as on human society in the Mediterranean Basin. OT-Med intends to create synergies between its participating scientists at all levels. This is being achieved by organising interdisciplinary exchanges in research and education, by promoting interdisciplinary research projects, through an ambitious policy for hosting visiting researchers, postdocs and PhD fellowships, and exchanges with Southern countries, by organising international symposia, summer schools and workshops, by organising scientific, technical and socio-economic databases resulting from research, for both scientists and stakeholders etc.
Application requirements
Internal call for joint projects
- Only scientific projects included in the OT-Med participative procedure launched in November 2015 may be submitted. However, participating to this procedure does not guarantee the selection of the project.
- The planned research must be carried out within at least two member laboratories of OT-Med (see web site) or within one OT-Med member laboratory associated with one member laboratory of ECCOREV. If this condition is satisfied other laboratories and private enterprises are also welcome.
- A project may include costs for research expenses, small equipment, a PhD thesis fellowship (three years) or a postdoc fellowship (one year with a possible extension for a second year). We do not cover technicians' or engineers' salaries, but the two OT-Med engineers may be included for helping database and modeling developments (in the limit of their availability). Project costs relate only to personnel actually paid by the project – a substantial involvement of the PI and other OT-Med members is expected.
- After approval of a project, the selection of the candidates for the positions specified in the project (PhD students, postdocs) will be under the responsibility of the project PI(s), but approval by the OT-Med executive committee is required. Employment contracts will be drawn up and signed by OT-Med. They must be approved by the Aix-Marseille University and must comply the AMU rules. For both PhD and postdocs, an international advertising of the position is requested in order to receive a number of high-level candidatures and discourage local candidatures. For the postdoctoral fellowships, mobility is required and the candidates who did their PhD at the partner laboratory of OT-Med or in a lab of AMU are not eligible. For PhD candidates we expect good final results of their Master 2 (minimum “mention bien” or equivalent). In some strongly well-argued cases, a post-doc already working at OT-Med may be considered for a new, but different post-doctoral project.
- The duration of the project may be between 1 and 3 years (a project including a PhD fellowship should be a 3-year project).
- The funding amount that can be requested is not limited a priori but the demand must be compatible with the amount of money available for this call (see above). The selection committee may reduce the requested amount to keep a good equilibrium between the WPs.
- Co-funding (already obtained or requested) is welcome and enhances the chance of selection.
Support to mobility
- Outgoing fellowship: This call intends to help any scientist active in OT-Med to make short visits in a foreign institution to develop scientific collaborations in relation with the OT-Med research themes (http://www.otmed.fr). The visited laboratory can be in other Mediterranean countries or elsewhere, under the condition that the research is directly connected with the Mediterranean. We will support short visits of one to four weeks. Outcome of these fellowships should be a written project to be submitted to an external research agency or a scientific paper. A plan for this must be developed in the proposal.
- Ingoing fellowship: As for outgoing fellowship, there is also a possibility of funding short visits of scientists from abroad who want to initiate or develop collaboration with a research team member of OT-Med. Exchanges with the member institutes of the Mediterranean Earth Systems Analysis Network (MESAN) are particularly welcome.
Note: OT-Med wants to help young scientist to attend to international conferences where they will have the opportunity to present their results as oral talk or posters. This is limited to one support per year and per person. Cofunding by the team where the scientist works is particularly welcome. This type of application is not covered by this call. Applications can be made directly to the director of OT-Med at any time but with a sufficient delay before the event (two months minimum). The decision will be made with consideration of available funds and the pertinence of the planned conference for OT-Med. If granted, OT-Med support must be made clearly visible on the poster or in the oral contribution.
Support to scientific events (of summer schools, conferences, workshops)
- The main organiser must be a member of one of the OT-Med laboratories.
- This call is intended to support international events, occurring after 1st June 2016, in which local students and scientists are given the opportunity to interact with high-level scientists from various countries and particularly Mediterranean countries.
- It is essential for these events that the organiser invites a number of distinguished speakers in order to attract a sufficient number of participants; a few fellowships must be reserved to young scientists from developing Mediterranean countries.
- Summer schools are intended to train young scientists in cutting edge research concepts or techniques related to OT-Med's scientific domains. Workshops are intended to gather around a table the best specialists in a given topic within the scientific areas of OT-Med and to carry out collaborative work (data syntheses, reviews, model development ...). OT-Med funding can be used as a complement for a conference budget in preparation or for setting up a new conference. In any case, the event must be of an outstanding level and must match the OT-Med priorities.
- The OT-Med committee may propose some key speakers, corresponding to the international collaborations that it is developing.
- Cross-initiatives between labex are also appreciated.
Process
- The proposal must be submitted by a scientist from OT-Med (in concertation with the WP leaders concerned) by email to the administrative director of OT-Med: pekar@cerege.fr until the 22nd February 2016, at 8 am.
- The proposal (reduced to a single pdf file) must follow the form provided in the appendix.
- After initial screening, the OT-Med Executive Board will assign two external referees for each scientific project.
- At mid-April 2016, the Management Board will rank and select the projects; applicants will be notified before the end of June.
- The selection criteria are: (1) the scientific excellence, innovative nature of the project and quality of the interdisciplinarity, (2) the robustness (feasibility) of the work plan, (3) the consistency between the project and the priorities of OT-Med, (4) the quality of the organization set up to support the project, including a realistic and coherent budget, (5) the academic excellence of the investigators.
- It is possible that the selection of a given project is made contingent on a modification of the proposed budget.
Obligations of funding recipients
- The recipient must submit a short research report at the end of the project, indicating (1) how the actual cost of the project was covered by the funds received, (2) how the objectives have been achieved, (3) the main output, in particular the papers published or submitted in relation with the project. For two-year projects, a progress report must be submitted before the end of the first year.
- The recipient must acknowledge OT-Med as the funding source in all communications related to the project, in particular in publications and oral presentations. In the publications the following sentence should be used in the acknowledgements: “This research is a contribution to the Labex OT-Med (No ANR-11-LABEX-0061) funded by the (Investissements d'Avenir) program of the French National Research Agency through the A*MIDEX project (No ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02).”
Form for submission to OT-Med call 2016 (download here)
OT-Med call 2016 information (download here)