BELSPO - Call for proposals - POST-COVID

Research

Funding organisation:

POD Wetenschapsbeleid

What?

With this programme, BELSPO wants to fund scientific projects that aim at a close examination of the long-term impact of the COVID crisis on Belgian society, with a view to producing key messages and lessons learned for the federal government. Applicants will focus their proposals on the following four main themes (as well as the sub-themes specified in the call text):

1. Well-being
2. Inequalities and vulnerabilities
3. Democratic governance
4. Pandemic Intelligence 

The three first themes are closely intertwined. Therefore, applicants can either choose to examine a specific topic within the theme it belongs to or investigate it across different themes. And finally, note that virological and clinical research topics are not within the scope of this call.

A budget of 7 million € is dedicated to this call: 5 million € for the first three topics and 2 million € for topic 4 (Pandemic Intelligence).

The projects will have a duration of 24 to 30 months, plus 1-6 months for the implementation of the impact plan. It should be noted that the contract commitments will be made late in 2023. The teams will receive an additional 3 months, necessary for the operational start-up of their work (hiring of scientific staff, etc.). The end date of the projects can in no case be later than 15 December 2026.

Who?

Projects must be submitted by a network of researchers composed of at least two partners from two different eligible Belgian scientific institutions.

The participation of Federal Scientific Institutions (FSIs) and the cooperation between research partners of different Communities or Regions are encouraged. In the final selection step, in case of a tie between proposals equally ranked by the Panel of experts, priority will be given to networks in which one or more FSIs are involved and/or to networks composed of partners from different communities and/or that cover the Belgian territory. And finally, the gender dimension (in the network composition and in the proposal's content) will also serve to delineate projects in the final stage.

Cooperation with non-Belgian scientific researchers is possible, provided these bring their own funding sources to the project. Since foreign researchers are not signatories to the research contract, the responsibility of their input to the project falls entirely under the responsibility of the project coordinator.

Application?

The submission of a POST-COVID project consists of 2 steps.

1. Applicants must submit a pre-proposal by 17 May 2023 at 14:00 by email to POST-COVID@belspo.be.
   More information on what should be included can be found in the information file.
   
   
2. Applicants must submit a full proposal using the templates available on the website by 6 July 2023 at 14:00 to POST-COVID@belspo.be.

BELSPO will organise an online information session on 26 April 2023 at 10:00. Registration is required.

More information?

More information, such as the evaluation criteria, can be found in the Information file. 
On the BELSPO website, templates for the pre-proposal, full proposal and information document can be found.

Deadline

06.07.2023

Contact Hasselt University?

E-mail sarah.szyr@uhasselt.be

Tel. +3211269052