Call for PRPs and SIGs

Detailled Instructions

The call for Prospective Research Projects PRPs is now closed due to EURON itself finishing on April 30, 2008. Special Interest Groups SIGs can still be submitted for a little longer, using the on-line application form.

We want to encourage young researchers to apply for funding. Many may not have put together a proposal before. Ideally, they have a more experienced mentor who can help, but not all situations are ideal. These detailled instructions are designed to help.

Preparation

You are welcome to step through the form to see what it says — so long as you don't press submit at the end, no-one will know. You can't step through the form without satisfying the validation criteria, eg putting something that passes as a URL in the URL boxes and emails in the email boxes, but the long text boxes are valid with just a single letter in them. Then press the "new proposal" link and all the rubbish data will be deleted. Or press "basic information" and edit your entries to be the real thing.

Information to collect

It is a good idea to collect together the information you will need in advance of starting typing. Obviously you have already been discussing with your prospective partners just what you want to do and who should be involved.

The form asks for names and emails of a contact person for each partner. It also asks for a URL for each partner. The best URL is one that demonstrates the partner's interests and abilities in the area of interest — this is not necessarily the partner's home page! The reviewers may well look at this website when assessing your group's abilities to deliver what you promise.

The form asks for four main free-text entries. These are strictly character-limited. Although you will be warned if you have too many characters, it is a good idea to work on saying what you want in the space given before you start entering the data. It is too easy to delete something vital if you are shortening text "live".

Unfortunately only plain text can be accepted at the moment, please do NOT cut and paste formatting instructions or HTML into the spaces. It just won't get to the reviewers properly and may well lead to your proposal being rejected. If you really have to put a URL in (eg, for a diagram), just type it as text. The reviewers will probably look at it, but they don't promise to do so.

The free-text areas and their limits are as follows.

1. Description: 2500 chars. Tell us what your proposal is about and why it is interesting.
2. Budget Justification: 2000 chars. Obviously, we are extremely interested in why you need the money you are asking for! For PRPs, you will need to assign money individually to each partner, and justify your distribution according to the roles each partner has. Non-EU people cannot get EU money, so their budget will have to be zero. Sorry. They are welcome to join in, but have to fund themselves from elsewhere. EU groups who are not members of EURON can get money, but have to join EURON first. Joining EURON is free.
3. Deliverables: 2000 chars. What concrete results (including reports and meetings) will our money be buying? For SIGs, the deliverables may well just be meetings; for PRPs the deliverables will include something more concrete: a demonstration, a comparison, trial results...
4. Evaluation: 2000 chars. How will you measure the success of your work? For a SIG, this may be the number of people who attend your meetings, or the number of groups you end up including.

The form itself

We have tried to make the form easy to understand. Instructions about what should be in the various boxes of the application form appear near each box and on the right-hand side of each page. Just fill in each box with what it asks for. If you miss anything out or enter something not valid, the form will complain and make you do that page again. It doesn't check for spelling, grammar or sense, though!

The pages come in four pairs: first you enter your input into the boxes, then you get a chance to see what it looks like and check it. You can then edit the page or else move on. You will have the opportunity to check and edit your inputs right up until you submit. Just don't press "new proposal", or the information you have already given is deleted! After the form is submitted, it is too late to change anything.

Information about what is on each page is given in the right-hand column of this page.

Submitting your application will send it directly to the reviewers. You can expect them to complete the preliminary review within a month. If they are in doubt about anything, you may be asked for further information.

The application form is the only source of information your reviewers have. It is worth spending time filling it in accurately.