Concerted Research Actions (4 to 6 year projects) - call 2023

*Nederlandse versie*

Duration and starting date

• Period: 4 to 6 years
• Funding: Minimum budget of € 150.000/year. Funding can be acquired for personnel, operational costs, equipment, and/or sub-contracting.
• Start project: 1 January 2024

Specifications

• GOAs are research projects with a duration of four to six years of which the scientific excellence can be demonstrated on the basis of objective data – more specifically on the basis of publications and other indicators that show the scientific quality of the researchers in question. GOAs are ambitious projects with a highly concertated nature in which each promoter provides expertise that is essential for the realization of the proposal. At the same time, the promoters must be complementary to each other and/or mutually reinforcing and they need each other to be able to carry out the project in synergy. This synergy is indispensable to answer the research question and to achieve the intended scientific breakthroughs. Earlier collaboration between the members of the consortium can be an added value but is not necessary;
• A GOA can be interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary but this is not a must. This means that researchers from the same department can jointly apply for a GOA, provided this GOA has a concerted nature as described above;
• A GOA consortium consists of at least two members;
• This call is specifically intended for ZAP (in the role of Spokesperson or Promoter) with considerable experience in leading a research team and supervising PhD's, if desired in combination with promising postdoctoral researchers (in the role of Promoter or Co-promoter) with great potential.

Who can apply?

A GOA consortium has to consist of one Spokesperson and at least one additional (Co-)Promoter.

Attention: specific conditions apply for the Spokesperson, Promoter(s) and Co-promoter(s).

Take a look at the different roles within a GOA consortium

Who is excluded from participating in the new GOA call?

• Holders of Methusalem funding
• Spokespersons, Promoters and Co-promoters of running GOA projects, unless the last year of the running GOA project is 2024 or earlier.
• One can submit only one application as Spokesperson, Promoter of Co-promoter in the same GOA call. Participation in a second GOA application is only allowed as involved researcher with a limited contribution to the project.

Evaluation

The selection of the GOA projects is a 2-step process.

Short proposal

• Must be written in English
• The evaluation is carried out by the Research Council and the scientific committees of the Research Council

Elaborated proposal

• If the short project proposal is selected by the Research Council, the consortium has at least one month at its disposal for writing and submitting a definitive, elaborated project proposal
• Must be written in English
• Contains an update of the short proposal, the project description can be elaborated to 12 pages, an English summary of 1 page must be added and a new download of the BOF report in Biblio is necessary.
• Referees: the elaborated project proposals are  presented for advice to at least three experts (referees) who are not connected to Ghent University
• Presentation: the consortia of the elaborated project proposals will be invited to bring an oral presentation of their proposal to the Research Council  and a Q&A session. Presentations will take place on 3 October 2023.

Criteria for evaluation

The criteria that are used for the evaluation are:

• the scientific excellence of the consortium
• the concertated, synergetic nature of the consortium and the project
• the scientific value, the approach, innovativity and feasibility of the project. Risky research is welcome.

Deadline

• Deadline applications: 16 December 2022, 23:59
• Deadline elaborated proposals: 2 May 2023, 23:59

Results

• Preselection: results online as of 22 March 2023
• Final selection: results online 5 October 2023

Contact

Research Department
Research Co-ordination Office - Special Research Fund

E BOF@ugent.be

Call and application forms

The entire call and application form can also be downloaded

The proposals have to be electronically submitted via BOFapplication@ugent.be. 

• Call 2023  -    Call 2023
• Application form 2023

Scientific report

• Final report : Within one year after the end of the project a scientific report, signed by the promoters, has to be sent electronically to BOFapplication@UGent.be. The (co-)promoters are included in the e-mail, either as sender or in copy.
• Intermediate report: If at least 2 members of the consortium (Spokesperson and/or Promoters) of the current application participate together in a running of recently finished GOA project (i.e. a GOA that terminates/terminated in the period 2020-2024 – here the official end date counts and not the end date of the budget in SAP), then a report summarizing the results so far of the previous GOA needs to be added in annex to the application. This is the case both for GOA proposals that are a continuation of the previous GOA as for GOA proposals that have no connection with the previous GOA concerning content. If such a report is submitted together with the short project proposal, no other reports have to be submitted later on.

(The form for the end report and the intermediate report is the same.)