Grant Writing for Career Funding Programs

Aims

Participants will learn how to prepare themselves for an application to one of the major career funding schemes, such as Ambizione, SNF Starting Grant, or Postdoctoral Fellowships (SNF, MSCA). We will discuss principle of Grant writing, evaluation processes, as well as the challenges and requirements for a strong proposal.

Participants are required to invest time into preparatory work before the course and actively participate in group work during the course. At the end of the course, participants will have the knowledge and will have drafted the relevant proposal sections in order to continue towards finalizing their own Grant proposal.

Content

The Grant Writing for Career Funding Programs course consists of 3 sessions of 4 hours each.

Session 1: Understanding the “hidden rules”
Participants will learn why and when to apply for what and how to set the focus of their proposal. Evaluation processes, administrative tasks, data management, research ethics and much more will be discussed.

Session 2: Address “myself” in the proposal
The focus will be on the CV and track record and how to best include own experience and knowledge into the proposal.

Session 3: The “heart” of your application: Do’s and Don’ts for writing the research plan
Participants will receive input and support from their peers, former panel members and current grantees to allow them to work on their own research plan.

Methods

Self-structured preparation
Input from experts
Collaborative in-person work

Target Group

All Postdocs

Requirements

Participants know the career funding landscape and are preparing to apply for their own major funding in the next 12 – 24 Months (e.g. Ambizione/ post-doctoral Fellowship/ ERC or SNF Starting Grant). The course is suited for researchers of all disciplines.

Participants who do not yet specifically prepare to apply for a particular grant are encouraged to participate in one of the Career Funding for Postdocs events and/or acquire the knowledge themselves. The Grant Writing Course will not provide participants with a full overview on the funding opportunities.

Participants must be eligible to one of the above mentioned calls within the next 12-24 months. When registering, please indicate in the remarks section which scheme you plan to apply for.

Registered participants will be informed in due time before the first session about any preparatory work. Participants bring their own laptops and preparatory documents to the sessions.

About the Trainer

Dr. Eve Silfverberg, Head of Grants Office and Julia Wyss, Research Manager, from the Grants Office of the University.

The trainers have background in the life sciences and social sciences and humanities respectively. They have in-depth knowledge about the Swiss and European funding schemes, as well as extensive experience in supporting researchers with the preparation of their grant proposals.

Workload

The course consists of 12h course attendance (3x4h). In addition, self-structured preparation is required. Depending on the personal situation of the participant and prior work on proposals the amount of hours required can vary.

Feature

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.