Call for proposals within INRA's and Formas' areas of responsibility, 2008 - 2010

List of funded grants

Invitation

INRA and Formas have an agreement for scientific co-operation. One essential part of this co-operation is the mutual funding of joint research projects of high scientific quality and of high relevance within the two organisations areas of responsibility.

The call is open to proposals from all disciplines within INRA's and Formas' areas of responsibility. INRA´s and Formas´s scientific priorities are quite similar and described on their websites www.inra.fr and www.formas.se. Members of INRA´s and Formas´s scientific communities are invited to submit proposals within the framework as explored below. Please notice that the applications must be written in English to facilitate the evaluation procedures in both countries.

INRA and Formas will prioritise projects that take full advantage of the collaboration between the French and Swedish teams and thereby maximize the return of the investments (including mobilisation and valorisation of previously existing infrastructures or technologies) by:

• Increased potential for delivering significant progress in science and technology, compared to projects carried out in solely national teams
• Creation of stable alliances between the teams that will remain after the funding period
• Having an impact on European research and leading to future initiatives on European and international level

The call aims to fund two collaborative projects for a period of two years. The selected projects should include substantial collaboration amongst partners working closely together, and there should be a clear demonstration of added value in the proposed partnerships. A further two-year extension (2011-2012) of the projects is likely to be possible, but the projects will undergo a full evaluation after completion of the first two years.

Exchange of scientific staff between the partner institutions will be encouraged. A special emphasis should be put on participation and mobility of young scientists, as well as on cross-stays of longer periods (> 2 months) of researchers between the Swedish Institutions and the French Units participating in the joint scientific projects.

By common agreement, the funding remains “national”, meaning that INRA funds are intended to support French teams and Formas´s funds to support Swedish teams.

The proposals may include funding for:

1. Consumables, durable equipment, specific costs for meetings and discussion of results, as well as short-term travels (<2 months)

2. Grants for exchange of scientific staff (salaries and expenses) on longer periods (>2 months)

The proposals shall also include a detailed description of the financial commitment and participation to the project of the applicant research unit.

The call is also open for proposals for organising two exploratory workshops aiming at identifying research topics of high relevance and teams suitable to carry out these collaborative projects.

Besides scientific excellence and impact, the following criteria will be of importance for the selection for projects and workshops for funding:

• Socio-economic relevance and prospects
• Compliance to ethical standards
• Gender composition (as a normal institutional policy)

On the Swedish side, the INRA-Formas collaborative programme is a responsive mode initiative open to Swedish universities, academic analogues, research institutes and laboratories recognized by Formas. On the French side, the collaborative programme is open to INRA Research Units (UR), Mixed Research Units (UMR) and to associated laboratories.

Procedure and time schedule

The timeframe is as follows:

• the call will be opened on 1 March 2008
• the deadline for submitting full applications is 16 May 2008
• panel evaluation – final selection by 29 September 2008

A proposal should include:

• the application form (form 1),
• a research program of at most/as a maximum 10 pages (form 2) when applying for a project and a brief description of the ideas to be developed at the workshops when applying for a workshop,
• a detailed budget plan (form 3), and
• CV for both principal scientists (CV of other participating scientists are also welcomed), including a list of publications since 2003, separately presented for peer-reviewed papers and others.

For more information please contact:

Viktoria Halltell, +46 8 775 4062,
, in Sweden or

Bernard Esmein, +33 (0)142759136,
, in France