Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development (IEF)

Overview: The Intra-European Fellowship funds salary for a researcher (within Europe) for a period of 1-2 years. It supports the career development, or restart, of experienced researchers at different stages of their careers.  

The aim is to support researchers in attaining and/or strengthening a leading independent position, e.g. principal investigator. The action may also assist researchers to resume a career in research after a break. Each researcher will establish, together with her/his personal supervisor in the host organisation, a Personal Career Development Plan comprising his/her training needs (including transferable skills) and research objectives.

Key Eligibility Criteria: Open to researchers active in Member States or associated countries. Researchers must be in possession of a doctoral degree or have at least four years of full-time equivalent research experience. Researchers must be at a stage of their career when they can benefit from a life-long training and career development. Researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity in the country of their host organisation for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the submission date.

In addition to the eligibility criteria described above, researchers applying to the Career Restart Panel must, at the time of the deadline for submission of proposals; not be active in research and not have held a fellowship, or been employed under contract in research for at least 12 months.

Duration: Intra-European Fellowships have a duration of between 12 and 24 months (full time equivalent) (2012 Work Programme).

Topic of the Project: The International Incoming Fellowship programme has a bottom-up approach i.e. all fields of research of interest to the European Union are eligible for funding (except areas of research covered by the EURATOM Treaty). Proposals will be classified into Evaluation Panels under eight major areas of research: Chemistry (CHE); Social and Human Sciences (SOC); Economic Sciences (ECO), Information Science and Engineering (ENG); Environmental and Geo-Sciences (ENV); Life Sciences (LIF); Mathematics (MAT); Physics (PHY) plus a Career Restart (CAR) Panel. The applicant chooses the panel to which the proposal will be associated at the proposal submission stage and this should be considered as the core discipline. The REA reserves the right to move proposals from one panel to another.

The aim of the Career Restart Panel is to encourage researchers to resume research after a career break. By applying to CAR, you will not be competing with researchers who have had an uninterrupted career.

Typical Activities of an IEF: The main activities of an IEF will be based on a training-through-research project prepared by the experienced researcher in liaison with University College Cork. This project is tailored in order for the experienced researcher to reach a well-defined objective in terms of career advancement, for example attaining a leading independent position, or resuming a research career after a break. The project will be shaped in order to develop and widen the competences of the experienced researcher significantly, in particular in terms of multi- or interdisciplinary expertise, inter-sectoral experience and complementary skills. Such training activities might include:

• Training-through-research under supervision by means of an individual personalised project
• Hands-on training activities for developing scientific (new techniques, etc.) and complementary skills (proposal preparation, patent applications, project management, presentation skills, etc).
• Inter-sectoral or interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge

A Personal Career Development Plan will be established prior to the start of the project in order to aid in the provision of the research training programme that best suits the needs of the experienced researcher. This plan will act as a reference for the experienced researcher herself/himself to monitor the progress and take corrective action when necessary in order to attain the target set in terms of professional development.

Salary and expenses: The financial support for International Incoming Fellowships takes the form of a grant comprising the following components:

• A monthly living allowance (In 2012 the base rate for experienced researchers with 10 years experience was €87,500. These rates are adjusted for the cost of living in the host country).
• A monthly mobility allowance (this is a monthly payment, adjusted for the cost of living in the host country, to cover expenses related to the mobility i.e. relocation, family expenses, language courses, travel expenses etc. There are two reference amounts depending on the family situation of the experienced researcher: €1000/month for an experienced researcher with family obligations and €700/month for experienced researcher without family obligations.
• A contribution to the training expenses of the researcher that covers costs related to the project (e.g. consumables, participation in conferences and training courses, memberships of scientific associations etc. This contribution consists of a flat-rate amount of €800 per researcher-month.

Next expected call:  March 2013

Further Information: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/mariecurieactions/ief_en.html