Inter-lab Pilot Projects

After a successful start in 2023, the Brain Dynamics Graduate School is announcing the second call for doctoral candidates and postdocs to develop their own collaborative small-scale projects. The Inter-lab Pilot Project program offers funding in the amount of up to 3.500€, including consumables (up to 2.000€), a HiWi position (up to 2.000€), and some small equipment (up to 1.000€), to support multi-lab, multidisciplinary pilot projects in humans and/or animal models. The objective of the Pilot Project program is to enable Brain Dynamics members to collect and/or analyse preliminary data in preparation for grant applications to local, national and international funding agencies. 

BENEFITS

Doctoral and postdoctoral researchers: 

• an opportunity to go through a “mini-grant writing” procedure,
• run their own project with their own ideas,
• establish collaboration with colleagues from the local scientific community.

Principal investigators:

• more independent members of their working groups,
• fresh ideas, potentially aligned with ongoing research in their own group,
• getting familiar with other PIs' work, which can potentially turn into future full-scale research collaborations and grant applications.

Requirements

• Applicants must be doctoral students and postdocs who are members of the Brain Dynamics Graduate School.
• Each project proposal has to include members of at least two different working groups, preferably those without previous collaborations.
• Each application has to include at least one doctoral student, i.e., can’t be written by postdocs only.
• Proposed projects cannot be currently funded and should envisage a period between three and six months.
• Filled application form (s. below) submitted along with the project proposal and PI signatures before 31st December.

Proposal guidelines

Required format of the project proposals:

• maximum 5 pages in English, including figures and tables, excluding references,
• Times New Roman font 12 pt,
• single line spacing.

Please include the following subsections in your proposal:

• Research question (Which goal do you want to achieve? Which problem do you want to solve?)
• State of the art (What is the current knowledge about the topic in question? What are the research gaps?)
• Methods & Data collection (Which methods would be used? What kind of data is going to be collected? How is it going to be analysed?)
• Inter-center collaboration (What is the role of each applicant? How do research groups complement each other? What is the advantage of such collaboration?)
• Results & Significance (What is the expected outcome of the project? What is the potential impact of the study? How could it continue in future?)
• Budget (Expected costs for consumables - up to 2.000,00€, a HiWi position - up to 2.000,00€, and/or some small equipment - up to 1.000,00€)
• Work plan (Detailed schedule/timetable)
• Short CV for each applicant

Evaluation criteria

A scientific committee will evaluate all applications submitted. Funded projects will be announced within three weeks after the deadline. The pilot projects will be evaluated using the following criteria:

• Project 45%

- Clear motivation and testable hypothesis 15%

- Methodological approach 15%

- Feasibility within the proposed period 15%

• Inter-lab collaboration 25%

Complementary expertise of the investigators from different working groups.

• Potential impact and significance 20%

Capacity for pilot results to lead to external funding

• Budget 10%

Realistic and well justified budget.

Obligations

Successful applicants commit to fulfil following requirements:

• Acknowledge Brain Dynamics support in any publication (e.g. conference proceedings and peer-reviewed articles), or poster and/or oral presentation resulting from this research.
• Submit a progress report at the end of the funding period summarizing the status of the research project, including copies of abstracts and articles published as a result of this research.
• Participate in annual Brain Dynamics Scientific Day with oral and/or poster presentation of the results of the funded project.
• Notify the Brain Dynamics Graduate School of any positive decision of granting agencies related to the subsidized project.