Warwick, Vrije and Paris Seine offer a number of PhD scholarships to enable promising researchers to be jointly supervised in order to complete their PhD. PhD candidates will have one supervisor at Warwick and another at VUB or UPS and spend at least 12 months in each institution. Successful candidates will enter into an agreement governing the joint supervision of their PhD with Warwick and VUB or UPS. The scholarships will cover payment of tuition fees, provide a stipend and support reasonable travel and research expenses.

The 2019 scholarship application deadline has now passed and the call for applications is closed. If you have any questions please contact [email protected] 

Objectives

The Researcher Mobility Program will support research visits of EUTOPIA researchers across EUTOPIA partner universities. The main objective of this program is to foster research collaborations and to allow the sharing of expertise and infrastructures and the development of joint research activities (e.g. common publications, PhD co-tutelles, joint applications for external research funds etc.), in line with EUTOPIA’s mission to promote a connected and inclusive academic community, addressing global and local challenges and advancing excellence and inclusion.

The program is developed as part of the EUTOPIA 2050 Erasmus+ project. It will allow each EUTOPIA university to finance a minimum of 4 research mobility projects, for a total of 24 research visits over the duration of the EUTOPIA 2050 project.

All visits financed under the EUTOPIA Researcher Mobility Program should be project-led and allow the development and furthering of research collaborations between the researchers of the EUTOPIA Alliance. The program is open to all academic disciplines and topics. Projects addressing key societal challenges of our time, and related to EUTOPIA’s overarching theme “Planetary well-being” are especially encouraged.

Eligibility and funding

Who can apply?

• Faculty from all EUTOPIA partner universities, including post-doctoral fellows – 

Pre-doctoral researchers are not eligible to this mobility program (but a dedicated doctoral mobility program is in preparation).

• Faculty from international partners of the six universities of EUTOPIA, within the frame of research projects involving researchers from multiple EUTOPIA member universities.

What can be funded ?

• The program supports short research visits of 2 to 3 weeks and covers travel, accommodation and living expenses during the stay, within the limit of 3000 euros per project.

• For EUTOPIA faculty, coverage and reimbursement will be defined in accordance with the financial rules of the home university of the researcher. For international faculty, the financial rules of the host university will apply.

Application procedure overview

A complete description of the application procedure will be provided online on 6 July 2020. 

The application will include:

• A description of the research project, to be carried out during the visit;

• The identification of a host researcher co-responsible for the conduct of the research project during the visit; who shall also be the main contact person for the visiting researcher in the host institution in the preparation of the project and during the visit; 

• the endorsement of the director of the host research center, confirming the research center’s capacity of offering good research conditions for the visit.

Research collaboration opportunities

For an overview of the research activities of the EUTOPIA partners and to establish contact with researchers or research centers at partner institutions, please refer to the following links:

• University of Warwick: https://warwick.ac.uk/research/

• Vrije Universiteit Brussel: https://www.vub.be/en/research; call: https://research-funding.vub.be/projects/eutopia-phd-co-tutelle-program 

• CY Cergy Paris University: http://theparisseineinitiative.org/en/research-areas-and-research-centers/  and  https://www.u-cergy.fr/en/research.html 

• University of Ljubljana: https://www.uni-lj.si/research_and_development/ 

• Pompeu Fabra University:  https://www.upf.edu/web/guest/research 

• University of Gothenburg: https://www.gu.se/english/research/?languageId=100001&disableRedirect=true&returnUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gu.se%2Fforskning%2F

Contact for general inquiries:

Nicola Ebenburger, Director of International Scientific Development, CY Cergy Paris University, [email protected]

The members of the EUTOPIA alliance decided to fund 12 PhD co-tutelle projects within the framework of the EUTOPIA PhD co-tutelle program 2020 promoting scientific excellence, research collaboration and academic mobility.

Launched in January 2020 and coordinated by CY Cergy Paris Université, this program is a significant activity of the EUTOPIA alliance in support of research cooperation. It illustrates the strong willingness of the partners to integrate their research communities.

With a two-stage selection process, including an internal evaluation phase within each institution and a final mixed jury between the partners of each co-tutelle, 

21 projects were initially submitted from five alliance partner universities: University of Warwick, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, CY Cergy Paris University, University of Ljubljana, Pompeu Fabra University. Four possible combinations of co-tutelle were offered: Warwick-CY , VUB-CY, Ljubljana-CY and Pompeu Fabra-CY .

The five participating partner universities jointly funded this programme. CY Cergy Paris University supported the call with 1.02 million euros from CY Initiative of Excellence.

The Paris Seine EUTOPIA International Fellowships program aims to foster scientific cooperation within the EUTOPIA Alliance. The program is open to researchers of the five partner universities wishing to undertake a short research stay (up to 21 days) at Paris Seine University. It covers stipend and living expenses for a fixed amount of 150 € per day (including travel fees and housing). Visitors will be hosted jointly in one of the research centers of the Paris Seine University and at the Paris Seine Institute for Advanced Studies. The scheme is fairly flexible. Fellows can come to the Paris Seine University for a single visit or for two or three visits up to 21 days. Applications are open for a fellowship to be held at any time in the current year.

Applications will be reviewed according to the following criteria: 1) Scientific project: previous collaborations or new collaborations, purpose and objectives of the research visit; and 2) Expertise of the visitor.

To apply, please fill this application form and submit it to [email protected]

For further information, please contact [email protected]

VUB is actively recruiting experienced researchers for the prestigious Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action – Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF) which is part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 funding scheme. The MSCA-IF funding scheme is geared to promising experienced researchers (ER). Please note: an ER denotes a researcher with a PhD degree, or at least 4 years of full-time equivalent research experience (unrelated to PhD studies). A repository of topics to inspire potential applicants, and to ensure a two-way knowledge transfer between applicant and host institution (a requirement for the proposal) has been created. The topics of the repository are thought to be seen as grounds for discussion and further evolution into a project idea together with the respective VUB supervisor.

The applicant will have to write a proposal to further expound his or her idea regarding e.g. innovation, training and stakeholders. More information.

EUTOPIA SCIENCE AND INNOVATION FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAMME

We are pleased to announce that the EUTOPIA’s Science & Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowships Programme (EUTOPIA-SIF) was selected, on February the 3d 2020, under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Action from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme.
It is the first EUTOPIA joint project to be granted a Horizon 2020 funding. With a total of 10.2 Million Euros (5.6 M€ of EU contribution and 4.6 M€ of co-funding by the alliance's members), EUTOPIA-SIF is an ambitious initiative to train 76 young researchers in five interdisciplinary Key Research Areas: Materials engineering - Data & Intelligence – Health – Sustainability - Welfare & Inclusion.

Arnaud Lefranc, Vice-president for International scientific development at CY Cergy Paris Université, said: “The EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship Program will create outstanding opportunities for talented young researchers to explore new research horizons, within an integrated program, gathering the scientific communities of the EUTOPIA alliance. It aims to train post-doctoral researchers with a high degree of entrepreneurial and innovation awareness to be part of the future generation of Science and Innovation leaders in Europe, capable of addressing the global challenges of our times. The program will also stimulate the furthering of research collaborations and joint projects within EUTOPIA. I look forward to seeing the first cohort of fellows start their research!”

The project is coordinated by CY Cergy Paris Université for the EUTOPIA alliance. The first call for applications will be published in the fall of 2020. Fellows will be offered full freedom to pursue their research project while benefiting from expert supervision and state-of-the-art research infrastructure. More than 45 companies, local authorities and non-profit organizations who are ready to train or host researchers on secondments already support the program.

Press release