Senior postdoctoral fellowships 2023, The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), Belgium

Objective

The senior postdoctoral fellowships are intended to support researchers who have completed their PhD a few years ago, in developing an independent, international research career.

For the funding of additional postdoctoral fellowships, the FWO collaborates with Meise Botanical Garden and with VITO.

For the postdoctoral fellowships call 2022, the Funds Suzanne Duchesne, managed by the King Baudouin Foundation offers an amount of € 75,000 in the form of special bench fees for selected postdoc researchers in oncology (Med4 panel).

Features

• Period: 3 years
• Salary scale: minimum €4,565.20 – maximum €7,116.70
• Call 2023 open since 19 September 2022
• Deadline: 1 December 2022 17:00h CET
• Announcement of selection results: 24 May 2023
• Start fellowship: 1 October 2023 (1 November 2023 is also possible)

Profile and conditions

• See the programme regulations for more details on eligibility conditions
• You hold a PhD by thesis or a degree or a diploma or certificate recognized as equivalent in accordance with European Union directives or a bilateral agreement
• You can apply for a senior postdoctoral fellowship if your PhD degree, with as reference point the date mentioned on the PhD degree, was awarded minimum three years and maximum six years before the first of October of the year in which the fellowship commences. You can always apply for a senior postdoctoral fellowship if you have previously enjoyed a junior postdoctoral fellowship. In that case, the senior postdoctoral fellowship must immediately follow the junior postdoctoral fellowship.
• You must have a postdoctoral research experience of minimum 2 years on the first of October of the year in which the fellowship commences. In case you have not had a (junior) postdoctoral fellowship from the FWO before, you must prove this experience by means of a declaration by the Flemish host institute. The declaration is to be signed by someone with signature authority, binding the host institute. Contact the host institute’s research co-ordination office for more info.
• You have not previously received a similar fellowship (not even in part).
• You can apply maximum two times for the same fellowship.
• You agree with the Research Integrity Clause

Application, evaluation and selection procedure

• You contact a supervisor affiliated to a Flemish host organization (eligible list: see regulations postdoctoral fellowships)
• You complete your application online, which is submitted to an FWO Expert panel.
• The supervisor is asked by the FWO to write a letter of recommendation.
• After the preselection by the expert panel, you will be notified and depending on your result, invited to the second round with interview.
• If you are selected for the second round, you’ll be interviewed by the panel between April 20 and May 15, 2022. The dates on which the preselection results will be communicated as well as the very dates of the interview (per panel) can be found here in due time.
• The Expert panels report to the Board of Trustees, who  decides on the appointment. The results will be announced via email and via our results page by 24 May 2023.
• You will receive feedback on the evaluation after the decision.
• The evaluation and selection procedures will be explained during infosessions (see below)

Regulations

• General regulations
  These general regulations are applicable for every funding of FWO
• Regulations for Postdoctoral Fellowship (valid from call 2019)
  These regulations contain all conditions to apply for an FWO-Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Regulations for the bench fee of FWO fellows
  These regulations contain all information concerning the bench fee for FWO-PhD Fellowships and postdctoral fellowships
• Internal and external peer review
  These regulations lay down the conditions of the evaluation and selection procedure for the research support programmes managed by the FWO. The final composition of the panels for the FWO postdoctoral fellowships will be published a few weeks after the close of the call 2023 (composition panels 2022 here).

Additional information for applicants

Contact:

• See /en/contact/for-the-researcher/for requesting additional info and for specific questions
• For technical (IT) problems regarding e-portal and application modules send an email to the IT helpdesk: FWOhelpdesk@fwo.be

General information:

• Evaluation and selection procedures are commented during the information sessions and in this presentation. The presentation allows to better understand the evaluation and selection process, and to prepare an application that meets the selection criteria
•  The info sessions are organized online (registration via the host institution – Research Coordination)
  • 5 October 2022 Universiteit Hasselt
  • 6 October 2022 Vrije Universiteit Brussel
  • 6 October 2022 Universiteit Antwerpen
  • 7 October 2022 KU Leuven
  • 13 October 2022 Universiteit Gent
• Example application form: offers a number of screenshots of the online application forms and the project template outline
• COVID-19 and your application
  
  As a candidate postdoctoral fellow you may be worried about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on your research career so far, the strength of your application file and the ambitions of your research project.
  
  Therefore we advise you to mention specific factors that influence your application in the entry field ‘career breaks’ and, where appropriate, ‘personal statement’, ‘research stays’ and/or in the project description file. The FWO will explicitly instruct the panel members to take this into account when assessing your application.

Support with your application

• The application form gives attention to various researcher profiles and research results. The purpose is to give researchers the opportunity to demonstrate the building up of their research career through a range of scientifically relevant activities, skills, experiences and achievements. The FWO is thus following an international trend away from a one-sided focus on ‘classical’ output criteria (such as publications, bibliometrics, patents and the like) towards a broader view of what science can be and accomplish, with respect for the specificity of each discipline. The application forms are aimed to help the researcher demonstrate that versatility The evaluation procedure has also been amended accordingly: in the score grids, the score descriptors have been supplemented with the new elements in the application form.
• Expert panels: make the right choice!
  • You are responsible to choose the expert panel that best fits your application. Carefully check the overview of the panels and the panel scopes  in order to make the most adequate choice. NEW: the panel structure is slightly adapted, starting from this 2023 call, and the scope of all panels was thoroughly revised. The reform further entails a new panel in the domain of medical sciences (Med9), as well as more attention to multi- and interdisciplinary research. Further information on these reforms can be found here: Research Foundation – Flanders – Panel structure reform (fwo.be).
  • If during the evaluation of your proposal there is a panel consensus that the application is out of scope it can be rejected for that reason. It is important to stress that the responsibility for the match between application and panel is the applicant’s!
• Scoring grids (reference framework with scoring descriptors)
  
  The expert panel (as well as the external reviewers) will evaluate your application based on score descriptors in a score grid.

• Score grid preselection
• Score grid interviews
• Guidelines interview (version 2022, in 2023 most probably the interviews will physically take place in Brussels) – update online in due time.

Source / More information: Official Website HERE.