3rd Grant Period

Short Term Scientific Missions

Eligibility Rules for cHiPSet (COST 1406)

1^st Call (June 2017)

This document describes the conditions of the first call of Short Term Scientific Missions for cHiPSet (COST Action 1406) in 2017. This first call of the 3^rd Grant Period intends to assign a global amount of 15.000 euros.

1. Grants

An indicative amount per time duration of the grant are specified as follows:

The values in the above table are an orientation and, in justified cases, could be increased (maintaining COST support rules) depending mainly on the estimated living cost in the destination requested. In any case, STSM must respect the following COST criteria:

1. They must have a minimum duration of 5 days.
2. They must have a maximum duration of 90 days.
3. STSM needs to be carried out in their entirety within a single Grant Period and always within the Action’s lifetime.

Specific additional provisions will be adopted to encourage the participation of Early Career Investigators (ECI) in STSM. To qualify for these specific provisions, the following conditions apply:

1. The mission must have a minimum duration of 91 days.
2. The mission must have a maximum duration of 180 days.
3. STSM performed by ECI need to be carried out in their entirety within a single Grant Period and always within the Action’s lifetime.

The calculation of the financial contribution for each STSM must respect the following criteria:

• up to a maximum of EUR 2.500 in total can be afforded to each successful STSM applicant;
• up to a maximum of EUR 160 per day can be afforded for accommodation and meal expenses.

For ECIs, the calculation for an increased financial contribution must respect the following criteria:

• up to a maximum of EUR 3 500 in total can be afforded to ECIs for missions with a duration of between 91 and 180 days;
• up to a maximum of EUR 160 per day can be afforded for accommodation and meal expenses.

2. Grant Global amount for the grants

For this first call of the 3^rd Grant Period a global budget of EUR 15.000 is available to be split among a variable number of grants.

3. Submission procedure and associated documents

First of all, candidates must register at the eCOST system [1]. Then, candidates must send an email to <J.C.Burguillo@uvigo.es> with the subject <CHIPSET: STSM GRANT> within the deadlines, providing these extra documents as attachments:

• A copy of the pdf file obtained after registering at the eCOST system.
•  A short CV (2 pages) in Europass format [2].
• An invitation letter from the host institution for the period requested.
• An estimation of the costs for the travel expenses and hosting. This can be done using telematic tools (Booking, Expedia, etc.) or, for instance, a budget provided by a university residence. These costs must be realistic, will be checked out, and can be used to define the final amount of the grant to be provided.
•  A description of the activities to be performed during the grant and their potential dissemination.

4. Deadline and grant period

The deadline for submitting the form to this call will be the 30^th of June. The period to perform the whole grant must fit within the interval starting the 1^st of September 2017, and ending before the 28^th of February 2018.

5. Evaluation

The STSM coordinator will perform a priori evaluation for each grant, and check out if there are some missing documents. Then he will issue a grant assignment proposal to be discussed by the evaluation committee composed by: the STMS coordinator, the working group leaders and the scientific coordinator of the COST Action. The evaluation committee will reach a common agreement avoiding conflicts of interest.

The rules for ranking the applicants will be decided according with the priorities stated by the Vademecum, i.e., considering: the number of candidates, number of ECI applicants, the PhD students, gender balance, working group balance, work aligned with the interests of the COST Action working groups, etc.

After evaluation, there will be a list of approved grants, and eventually another one with substitutes, in case of any applicant from the first list does not finally use the grant and resigns on time. Special measures can be taken with candidates resigning out of time, or using inappropriately the grant.

After performing the grant, the candidates have to provide their traveling tickets or boarding passes, together with a report [3] describing the activities performed at the hosting institution and a five-minute presentation of the activities performed. Then, the COST association will pay the agreed grant amount.

More information at: http://chipset-cost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/STSM_Manual_new-2.pdf

[1]                  https://e-services.cost.eu/w3/index.php?id=91 (Action reference “IC 1406”)

[2]                  https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/documents/curriculum-vitae

[3]                  The template needed to produce the final report is available at the chipset website: http://chipset-cost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/STSM-Grant-Report.docx