ECRA rules and guidelines
The ECRA will be given to the best R&D project proposal featuring Frontier Research between two Early Career Researchers from different ITQB NOVA or iBET laboratories (here on referred to as PI1 and PI2). Please read the instructions and rules carefully.
Post-award guidelines
Upon being awarded the ECRA PI1 and PI2 should acknowledge ECRA in any communication where the results funded by the award are used. These include any result communication (manuscript, poster, presentation) or activity (outreach, promotion, website) that is related with the work funded by ECRA. For this purpose please add the following "This work was funded by the Early Career Researcher Award (ECRA) at ITQB NOVA" or add the ECRA logo which you can find and download here or here.
Pre-award guidelines
Eligibility
PI1 and PI2 must be ITQB/iBET Early Career Researchers (people who have a PhD but are neither Principal Investigators of an established laboratory nor have a permanent position).
PI1 and PI2 must belong to ITQB/iBET established laboratories (all of those listed as such at http://www.itqb.unl.pt/research for each of the divisions).
PI1 and PI2 cannot belong to the same ITQB/iBET established laboratory.
PI1 and PI2 cannot participate in more than one application.
PI1 and PI2 must present a document where the PI of the host laboratory states that he/she is aware of the application submission and approves the future execution of the project in his/her laboratory.
PI1 and PI2 must present a novel idea that has not been funded by any funding agency or other funding source.
Proposals that do not comply with the proposal format guidelines (see below) or do not respect the eligibility criteria will be excluded with no possibility for resubmission.
Evaluation guidelines
Originality: capacity to come up with creative proposals delving into relatively unexplored fields (originality of the proposal and the methodology will be assessed).
Innovation: capacity to create new knowledge, create new lines of collaborative research. Use of new or innovative use of already existing technologies and/or theoretical approaches and/or experimental approaches.
Feasibility: the proposal puts forth ambitious but realistic ideas, which fit into PI1 and PI2 areas of expertise.
Clarity of exposition: capacity to present complex reasoning and very specific matters clearly and precisely. Appropriate wording including technical terms but avoiding use of overly specialised vocabulary.
Multidisciplinary approaches: collaborations between PIs from different ITQB/IBET divisions, although not mandatory, will be valued.
There is no hierarchy between candidate PIs, as such it is expected that PI1 and PI2 have similar levels of responsibility in the work plan.
The CV of the PIs will be evaluated with a weight of 30% and the proposal will be evaluated with a weight of 70%.
Budget justification
The ECRA budget can be used to fund expenses relevant for the research project as long as these are critical for its success, therefore all expenses require a justification. Regarding the nature of the expense, any expense ITQB NOVA guidelines allows to be associated with a research project is eligible for the ECRA budget (e.g. human resources, equipment, reagents, conferences, etc).
Proposal format guidelines
The proposal form is strictly limited to 4 pages and the minimum font size allowed is Arial 11 points with 1.5 line spacing. The 4 page limit excludes references (unlimited) and the CVs.
The CV is limited to one page of CV per PI.
Each section (indicated by blue-underlined headers) should be separated by one paragraph interval. The page size is A4, and all margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm (not including any footers or headers).
This form is the ONLY document to be submitted, please include the CV and bibliography information within the submission form.
Failure to submit any of the mandatory documents or following the application guidelines, shall result in the exclusion of the candidates without the possibility of appeal.
CV format
The CV is limited to one page per PI (PI1 and PI2).
PIs should focus on the last 5 years, highlighting the professional and academic experience, scientific findings and outputs, as well as prior training relevant to carry out successfully their proposal.
