Call for Research Stay Travel Grants

Instructions for submitting applications for Research Stay Travel Grants

1. General description

The RadoNorm Research Stay Travel Grant is meant to financially support RadoNorm Early Career Researchers with exchange visits, participation in long-term training courses and generally events that would further their training in radiation protection research, where the normal RadoNorm Travel Grant is inadequate to cover expenses.

There is no fixed total cost. Instead this will depend on the purpose and length of travel. The expenses should be kept as reasonable as possible and should be fully justifiable. RadoNorm reserves the right to reject any costs.

Deadlines for application are 31 March, 30 June, 30 September and 31 December until the end of the RadoNorm project.

2. Rules for applicants

Who is eligible?

• Early career researchers (hired to work on RadoNorm no longer than 5 years after completing their PhD) and PhD students who are employed in a RadoNorm beneficiary institution can apply.
• Applicants should be directly working on a RadoNorm task.
• Multiple applications from a single person are possible but priority will be given to first time applicants.

The support is only granted:

• To cover travel expenses [1]and lodging. The budget must be specified in the application form.
• For a trip that will take place within 6 months after the application deadline.

An application must contain:

• A filled-out application form
• Applicant’s CV.
• A letter of support from the head of the unit / supervisor.
• An invitation letter with motivation if the applicant is applying for travel support to carry out an exchange visit.

3. Submission and evaluation procedure

The complete application should be sent by mail to radonorm@bfs.de. The decision about support will be made within 15 days after the nearest application deadline. The applications will be evaluated by the 8 members of WP7. A recommendation for funding will be based on simple majority, with at least 5 evaluators participating in the evaluation. The following evaluation criteria and ranking will be apply:

Relevance to RadoNorm: 1 (least) – 10 (most).

Scientific quality of the abstract or plan of visit: 1 (least) – 10 (most).

Potential benefit to the education of the applicant: 1 (least) – 10 (most).

Successful applicants will be required to submit a report on their visit, latest 28 days after completion of the travel. Also, they are encouraged to share their experience on RadoNorm website and available social media channels. To this end please contact radonorm@bfs.de.

4. Cost guidelines

• Flights should be economy class or the lowest possibly carrier class offered by the airline.
• Accommodation costs should be below or around the range of 100 € per person per night, unless otherwise justifiable.
• Train and bus travel should be with tickets in second class.

5. Reimbursement procedure

1. The grantee will first be reimbursed for their travel costs by their hosting institution according to the institution’s practices.
2. The grantee and hosting institution will inform RadoNorm about the total cost of reimbursement.
3. The hosting institution will claim the costs in their financial statement of the periodic reports.

Please note that the coordinator (BfS) will not pay any invoices regarding travel expenses. There will be only a budget shift from coordinator’s budget to the respective beneficiary’s budget.

6. Considering the European Green Deal

When planning the travel please consider the possibility of reducing the carbon footprint. Actions to be considered include preferential choice of train transportation and minimizing printing of any paper material.

[1] Travel expenses must be reimbursable in accordance with ARTICLE 6 — ELIGIBLE AND INELIGIBLE COSTS of the GA. Beneficiaries not receiving EU funding will not be taken into account for travel grants in accordance with ARTICLE 9 – RULES FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTION TASKS BY BENEFICIARIES NOT RECEIVING EU FUNDING.