University of Padova STARS Grants for Individual Research Projects
Through the call for proposals STARS Grants 2019 the University of Padova financially supports individual research projects without any predetermined priority for the duration of two years. Candidates may apply in one of the 25 scientific research areas corresponding to the three ERC research domains: PE - Physical Sciences and Engineering, LS – Life Sciences, SH – Social Sciences and Humanities.
Programme objectives
The main goal is to increase the participation of the University in international competitive calls, specifically the ERC ones: STARS GRANTS 2019 grantees are committed to submitting an ERC application.
Scientific excellence will be the sole criterion to evaluate proposals.
Who can apply
We look for Principal Investigators (PIs) of any age and nationality who wish to carry out an innovative, ambitious and feasible research project at a hosting department at the University of Padova. Grants operate on a 'bottom-up' basis, without any predetermined priorities. They are open to PIs of any age and nationality, who wish to pursue research at a Unipd department and who are able to demonstrate the innovative nature, the ambition and the feasibility of the proposed research.
What we fund
The programme is characterized by three funding schemes:
- STARS Starting Grants (STARS-StG) for excellent PIs who are about to establish their own research team and/or to start their own independent research;
- STARS Consolidator Grants (STARS-CoG) for excellent PIs, who are already conducting research at the University of Padova and are consolidating their own research team and/or their own independent research;
- STARS Wild Card Grants (STARS-WiC) for PIs who submitted a project to the 2017 and 2018 ERC calls, indicated the University of Padova as their Host Institution, obtained a final score of "A" but were not funded due to budget limits.
Eligibility Criteria
For each type of grant, PIs of any nationality meeting the following criteria may apply:
- STARS-StG: the PI has been awarded his/her first Doctoral degree within a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 7 years prior to 30 November 2018; eligibility extensions are provided for in the 'Specific Eligibility Criteria' described in Annex 2;
- STARS-CoG: the PI is a tenured professor or researcher at Unipd, or a researcher on a fixed-term contract of type a) or type b) at Unipd, who has been awarded his/her first Doctoral degree within a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 12 years prior to 30 November 2018; eligibility extensions are provided for in the 'Specific Eligibility Criteria’ described in Annex 2; researchers who were granted a Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions – Individual Fellowship within the 2016 call for proposals, having Unipd as their Host Institution, are admitted to this funding scheme;
- STARS-WiC: the PI is a professor/researcher who submitted a proposal in the Starting or Consolidator or Advanced ERC Grant, 2017 and 2018 calls for proposals, indicating Unipd as Host Institution, obtained a final mark of “A” but was not funded due to budget limits.
How and When to apply
The STARS GRANTS 2019 call will be open from 10 January to 2 April 2019, 1 p.m. (Italian time zone).
The applications must be submitted via the on line system upon registration: https://pica.cineca.it/
