19 July 2021

LUCL announces the opening of a call from the ASPASIA Project of dr. Willemijn Heeren.  This call is intended for talented female researchers who have finished their PhD thesis (manuscript approved). It aims to improve the applicant’s CV in order to pursue a career in scientific research. The deadline for this call is October 1 2021.

Background ASPASIA

Women are underrepresented at higher levels on the career ladder. This is certainly true for higher education and research in the Netherlands. Aspasia ensures that more female assistant professors progress to the level of associate or full professor. Aspasia was set up by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands and NWO. The grant is intended to encourage the promotion of female Vidi grant candidates to an associate professorship and female Vici grant candidates to a full professorship. Willemijn Heeren was awarded an ASPASIA grant. From this grant, she reserved a sum of € 50.000 to support other female researchers in advancing their scientific careers.

Female researchers from the Leiden University Faculty of Humanities are encouraged to submit an application. 

Available amount and time-line

In total, a sum of € 50.000 is available, to be divided over 3-5 projects. The maximum amount to be requested is €15.000, and smaller budgets are equally welcome. The actual terms (number of months or sum granted) depend on the proposal. The grants are intended to maximally cover an appointment of 3 months fulltime or  6 months 0.5 fte. Note that travel and other costs, if applicable, should be included in the maximum budget of €15.000.

Candidates may apply for funding for projects that will take place in the period between January 2022 and October 2022. 

Coverage teaching relief

Please note the requirement that proposals requesting teaching relief include a proposal of how the teaching relief can best be covered in terms of courses and staff to teach on behalf of the applicant. This proposal for how to cover the teaching needs to be discussed with the supervisor (“leidinggevende”) and the programme chair(s) (“opleidingsvoorzitter(s)”) prior to submission. The application template includes a section on the coverage of the teaching relief. 

Call details

Funds are available for talented female researchers who wish to enhance their academic career. Financial support within this call is made available to enable the applicant 
-    to write a research proposal for external funding (open call or soon-to-open call),
-    to write or finalize one or more publications, and/or
-    to visit a renowned researcher/ research group for joint work, resulting in measurable output
The funding can be used for both personal and material costs, e.g. a short (extension of the) appointment, exemption from duties, travel costs, hiring a student assistant to help with analyzing data, etc. No financial support will be granted for finalizing the PhD thesis. 

Conditions
-    Researchers with some form of temporary contract with Leiden University need to first check the eligibility with their institute in view of the restrictions imposed by the Dutch Labour Law. 
-    Applicants are advised to inform their supervisor (“leidinggevende”) about their proposal prior to submission. In case the applicant requests teaching relief, the supervisor (“leidinggevende”) informs the programme chair(s) (“opleidingsvoorzitter(s)”) to discuss possible replacements prior to submission of the proposal. 

Application
Applications within this call must consist of: 
1.    CV 
2.    List of publications 
3.    Description of the research idea, strategy, workplan, funding request and if applicable proposal for teaching relief. Please use the template.

All three elements of the application must be submitted in one pdf-file. 

Criteria
All proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria: 
-    Quality of the applicant
-    Soundness of the strategy to develop the research idea into a proposal for external funding (fit between subject, career stage and funding schemes to be applied for, e.g. Veni, Rubicon, ERC StG, FWO,…), to turn previous research efforts into one or more published articles, or to initiate/continue joint work with a renowned researcher or research group
-    Quality of the research idea to be pursued 
-    Feasibility of the planning/work plan

Deadlines and submission procedure

Applications for the calls should be submitted digitally in pdf-format by October 1 2021(end of the day, CET) to the following Surfdrive share folder: https://surfdrive.surf.nl/files/index.php/s/e2kxTiGeqmLVGFI. Please make sure that all parts of the application (filled in template, cv and publication list) are merged into one pdf-file. Please name your file as follows:

ASPASIA_Call_Heeren_2021_Your Last Name.

Applications submitted later than this deadline will not be considered. Incomplete applications and applications that do not meet the criteria will not be processed. We expect to inform the applicants about the results before the end of November 2021.

For further information about the call, about funding schemes and feedback on funding strategies, you can contact the LUCL grant adviser Katja Lubina.