Junior and Senior Research Projects

In recent years, the FWO has faced a sharp increase in the number of applications for an FWO research project. As this has a negative effect on the success rates, the FWO Board of Directors decided that from call 2025 only 1 project application can be submitted per (co)supervisor. 
The rule that a maximum of 2 ongoing and/or applied projects in total are allowed for an applicant will be maintained. (Cross-institution projects for which a (co)supervisor has not applied for a budget for the entire duration of the project do not count towards this maximum).
Some concrete examples:
1. You are supervisor of 2 projects with official start dates 1/1/2022 and 1/1/2023. The first project ends before 1/1/2026 (start date new awarded projects call 2025), so you can submit 1 new project application in April 2025.
2. You have no ongoing projects. You can only submit 1 new project application in April 2025.
Important: This maximum also applies to Weave projects. So you have to choose to apply for a regular project OR a Weave project. 
The FWO website will be updated later. If you have any questions, please contact vlaams-federaal@ugent.be

Requirements

• The research must be carried out at an eligible Flemish main host institution, and may involve collaboration with other Flemish and/or federal research institutions (see FWO regulations, art. 7).
• The research project must be conducted under the supervision of a supervisor, and the optional further collaboration of one or more co-supervisors (see FWO regulations, art. 10 and 11).
• A researcher can act as a (co-)supervisor for a maximum of 1 project per application round. You can only apply if you are involved in no more than 2 projects as a (co-)supervisor (either at the application stage or those already in progress). This also includes the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) projects and the newly requested WEAVE projects. For (co-)supervisors of a partner institution within a cross-institutional project without their own budget, such projects do not count towards this total. 
• For junior projects the supervisor-spokesperson and (co-)supervisor must have obtained his/her first PhD degree maximum 12 years before1 April.
• For senior projects the supervisor-spokesperson or the (co-)supervisor has obtained his/her first PhD degree more than 12 years before 1 April. If one member of the research team is a senior researcher, the project becomes a senior project.
• All material acquired through operational or equipment funds from the FWO becomes the property of the university.
• The host institution is the employer of staff paid through research projects.
• No remuneration or cumulation with a remuneration may be granted to (co-)supervisors in the context of a research project.

Budget

General information: The success rate of a project is not influenced by the requested budget. There is no advantage for the applicant in requesting a smaller budget. Make sure the proposed budget will suffice to cover the project costs.

Staff

• If the name of the person who will fill the position is known, or if you want to hire someone with more seniority than in the table below, please contact the front officer of your department or vlaams-federaal@ugent.be for an estimation (based on seniority). Round the numbers to the next 500 or 1000..
• If that is not the case, please use the numbers below.

Consumables

• The normal operating costs, necessary for the execution of the project.
• Costs for job students, pollsters and expenses resulting from the invitation of a guest researcher in the research unit.
• Small equipment of less than 20,000 euro per unit, necessary for the project.
• Costs of study stays and participation in conferences abroad insofar as these are in line with the granted research project.
• Access to and dissemination of research results.

Staff + Consumables

•  On a project level (all institutions combined) an amount of minimum 50,000 euro per project year must be applied for.
•  Each Flemish or federal host institution can apply for an amount up to maximum 145,000 euro per project year.
•  A non-Flemish research institution (and non-federal scientific institution) can share for a maximum of 10% of the research budget.

Equipment

• All equipment from 20,000 euros to a maximum of 150,000 euros (per project).

Submission info for Ghent University researchers

You can find the online application form in the FWO e-portal (registration required) from mid-January on. Please use the FWO templates for the (English) project application, CV and consent form. Tip: You can highlight the most important elements in your cv. Please make sure that your publication list is up to date. If you have questions about the publication list, contact biblio@ugent.be.

Given that Team National Funding checks each project proposal against a number of eligibility criteria, the internal deadline for submission is 15 March 2024 (17:00). Please submit your proposal via the FWO e-portal (“submit"). We will revise the following elements of your proposal:

• Eligibility (co-) supervisor Ghent University
• Eligibility project budget
• We will check if the documents below have been uploaded, but we do not revise the content/form:
  • CV (co-)supervisor(s)
  • Consent form 
  • Publication list supervisor

If you want to continue working on your proposal after 15 March, please inform us via vlaams-federaal@ugent.be. We will reopen your proposal in the e-portal.
Please submit before 15 March, to allow our team to check if your proposal is eligible for funding.

FWO deadline: 2 April 2024 – 17:00 (via FWO e-portal “submit”). Note: As a researcher you CANNOT submit directly to the FWO. The actual submission to the FWO is done by Team National Funding, for which the deadline is April 2, 17:00.

After our submission to FWO, the supervisor-spokesperson receives a confirmation email from FWO. If you did not receive this email before 2 April 17:00, please contact vlaams-federaal@ugent.be.

To support you in advance as well, there is a preregistration (link: https://event.ugent.be/registration/event/4a812ed5-ec1f-447a-a03c-bea52934dbf9). If you inform us before Tuesday 19 February – 17:00 that you are planning to submit a research project, we can guarantee a proactive follow-up:

• We send you an overview of the eligibility criteria and changes in the regulations as compared to last year by e-mail.
• We inform our colleagues from the Biblio team that you will submit a proposal. This allows them to check your records in Biblio and offer support with the export of publications to the FWO e-portal.
• We immediately check the eligibility as a (co-)promotor and warn you if there is a problem.

Evaluation

• Your application will be submitted to a number of external referees for evaluation.
• It is possible to respond to the comments of the external referees and pre-rapporteurs (rebuttal phase).
• The FWO Expert Panels consider the applications. Please note: FWO reformed the expert panels in 2022. Check if the scope of the panel of your choice still fits your research. More information can be found on the FWO website.  

Result

• Announcement: 13 December 2024 (via the FWO website).
• The project starts on January 1 of the year following the application.

Information sessions

The full regulations + additional information are available on the FWO website.

Recording info session 26 January 2024

Presentations info session

• Presentation FWO 2024
• Presentation with information about the Data Management Plan
• Presentation with info about ethical questionnaire
• Presentation with information about Science Communication
• Presentation about the FWO results  2023 and the internal submission procedure Ghent University

Contact

Research Coordination Office - Team National Funding

• vlaams-federaal@ugent.be
• Sien Smits, MS Teams of  09 264 30 28
• Thijs De Jaeger, MS Teams
• Patricia Vanbrabandt, MS Teams