About

Ghent University and Western Sydney University are engaged in a partnership to explore and deepen academic collaborations. This partnership leverages the complementary research strengths in both academic communities to offer sustained and high-impact scientific outcomes. Working on the level of research, both institutions work towards initiating, deepening and widening collaborations with a long-term high-quality collaborations.

To realize these goals, the research board has allocated funds to support both junior and senior researchers who wish to enter such collaborations. 

What do we do?

The partnership aims to be an active radar for initiator of activities that may include:

• Joint research collaborations, or the joint publication of scientific papers and educational materials
• Joint summer courses or graduate and post-doctoral mobility
• Exchange of faculty, trainees and staff
• Participation in, and the co-hosting of lectures, meetings, seminars, symposia, exhibitions and conferences
• Joint applications for funding for future or ongoing collaborative projects
• Collaboration in other areas that foster research cooperation

Call for seed funding - open

Purpose

Seed grants serve to broaden and deepen research collaboration between faculty and staff at Ghent University and Western Sydney University.

This seed grant, with funding from the Ghent University Special Research Fund, aims to support new or ongoing research partnerships.
See also the call text for more information on the scope of this call.

Funding

Applicants can apply for up to 5.000€.

Eligibility criteria

Professors and post-doctoral researchers at Ghent University can submit a seed grant. All areas of research are welcome to apply. The beneficiaries can also be PhD students. Beneficiaries should always be UGent staff.

See the application form for all eligibility and priority criteria.

Deadline 

In 2025 there will be 2 calls. Here are the corresponding deadlines:

• Deadline call 1: 25 April, 2025
• Deadline call 2: 1 October, 2025

Procedure: the steering group and coordinator check whether the eligibility criteria have been met (see application form) after which the steering group ranks all proposals based on the priority criteria in the application form. Applicants can expect the selection outcome per call 3 weeks after the deadline.

Application form

The application form must be sent via email to elise.meerburg@ugent.be before the deadline.

Members

• Western Sydney University: David Ellsworth, Belinda Medlyn, Brendan Choat, Matthias Boer, Elise Pendall, Rachael Nolan, Kristine Crous
• Ghent University: Marieke De Craemer (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences ), Patrick Bultinck (Faculty of Sciences ) and Kim Calders, Wouter Maes, Jan Van den Bulcke,  Hans Verbeeck, Kathy Steppe  (Faculty of Bioscience Engineering )

There is a steering group in place at Ghent University for this partnership.
Members: Professor Kim Calders (chair), Professor Marieke De Craemer (co-chair) and Professor Patrick Bultinck (co-chair).

Contact

Do you have questions/remarks/ideas/…? Feel free to contact elise.meerburg@ugent.be (coordinator).