FAQ

Each fellowship will be granted for 2 years.

Your research project, if selected, will start up to six months after notification to the candidate and acceptance of the fellowship.

The Marie Skłodowska Curie - Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA PF) programme is similar to CIVIS3i Postdoctoral Fellowships, but they are not identical. Both programmes are part of Marie Skłodowska Curie actions and are open to Experienced Researchers (postdoctoral level) in mobility. For both programmes, applicants should apply with their own research project (bottom-up approach). The application files are somewhat similar. But, the eligibility criteria and the financial conditions are slightly different. The MSCA PF’s eligibility is under the Horizon Europe program (HEUR), whereas the CIVIS3i is under the Horizon 2020 (H2020) program. One of the eligibility differences between these two programs is that for the MSCA PF, only candidates with a maximum of 8 years of full-time research experience are eligible, while there is no maximum number of years of research experience to apply for a CIVIS3i fellowship.

For your information, CIVIS member universities launched an initiative with the purpose to facilitate the collaborations between researchers and supervisors within the framework of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships.

If you need further information on the MSCA PF in the framework of CIVIS, do not hesitate to contact CIVIS.

Based on the experience of other COFUND programs within the CIVIS Alliance universities, we expect to receive around 200 applications per Call of CIVIS3i. Update: For the First Call we received nearly 300 applications, with between around 40-80 applications per recruiting university.

Yes, living allowance includes social security. The fellowship contract is fully subjected and party to the Provisions of the recruiting universities’ national Social Security systems. The Social Security regime covers: Health Insurance, Maternity leave, sick pay in case of hospitalisation, Disability Insurance, national pension system, national unemployment system, Insurance against Workplace Accidents, Family Benefits, and Provisions towards Occupational Diseases.

No. All these expenses need to be covered by the CIVIS3i Fellows and their families independently. However, if the Host Institute agrees, there is a possibility to cover relocation and visa expenses from financial resources other than project costs.

If you do not hold your PhD Degree at the time of the call deadline, you are still eligible for the call as long as you have minimum 4 years of documented full-time research experience before the call deadline. You will have to fill in the H2020 table for 4-years of full time research equivalent experience. please check the Call Information section and the Guide for Applicants for more information and template with example.

Yes. The CIVIS3i Programme is open to researchers at all stages of their academic careers. They must hold a PhD or have at least 4 years of full-time equivalent research experience. CIVIS3i candidates will be evaluated according to their academic experience.

Yes. The CIVIS3i Programme is open to researchers of any nationality, representing all scientific disciplines. They must comply with the MSCA Mobility Rule, meaning that they must not have not resided or worked in the country of the recruiting university for more than 12 months during the three years prior to the call’s deadline (between 27 October 2019 and 27 October 2022).

The CIVIS3i candidates must comply with the MSCA Mobility Rule, meaning that they must not have resided, worked or studied in the country of the recruiting university for more than 12 months during the three years prior to the call’s deadline (between 27 October 2019 and 27 October 2022). If you left the country of your selected recruiting university in 2018, for instance, and worked, lived, and studied in other countries in the meantime, you are eligible to apply to the CIVIS3i Programme.

It depends on the system in the country where a document entitling to embark on a doctoral programme was obtained. If a lower degree (i.e., BA) qualifies to start doctoral studies, and the Master’s studies are research studies, then yes, they are counted towards the equivalent experience.

According to the MSCA mobility rule, CIVIS3i candidates must not have worked or lived in the country of the recruitment university for more than 12 months during 3 years before the call’s deadline. If, within this period, CIVIS3i candidates have been affiliated with the host university for longer than 12 months during the three years before the call’s deadline, they are not eligible to apply.

No. Only applicants without a PhD degree by the Call deadline must fill the H2020 Table proving at least 4 years of full time research equivalent experience.

Yes, as part of the application file, CIVIS3i candidates are required to indicate a Host University and a main supervisor. A compulsory letter of acceptance from the supervisor is also asked for in the submission portal.

Reference letters are not compulsory for the application file, but can be uploaded on the “Other optional documents” section of the submission portal. However, you must include a letter of acceptance from a supervisor at your recruiting university. The chosen supervisor should be identified by the applicant before the call deadline.

No, each candidate can apply with only one research project. If more than one application is submitted, only the first one will be considered.

CIVIS3i is a European programme dedicated to international researchers. That's why the general communication is in English. Your application file must be submitted in English, as it will be evaluated by international experts. For the communication with the CIVIS3i management team, the privileged language will be English although on a case by case basis support may be given in other languages (Portuguese, French, Italian, Spanish).

CIVIS3i universities are highly international and most of the research centres are used to communicate in English. Ask your supervisor which language could facilitate your integration in the research team.

Furthermore, as CIVIS3i fellows, you will benefit from the career development programme which includes languages courses adapted to your needs.

You can submit your official documents (PhD Degree, certificates, etc.) in English, Portuguese, French, Italian and Spanish. For other languages, please provide a certified translation.

If you applied to the First Call (2021), you can still apply to the Second Call in 2022 as long as you still meet all the eligibility criteria and as long as your proposal obtained a final score of >70% on the First Call.

No, at the application stage, such documents are not demanded. However, you would need them when signing the fellowship agreement. The documents must prove you were married and/or had dependent children at the Call deadline (marriage certificate or equivalent, birth certificates, etc).

Yes. You are entitled to the family allowance if you have dependent children who will live with you in the country of the recruiting university for at least three months during your fellowship.

No. Only researchers that are married (or equivalent) and/or have families at the call deadline will be entitled to the family allowance.

While applying for the CIVIS3i Fellowship, you can be within another funding scheme. However, when selected as a CIVIS3i fellow, you will be employed at the Host Institute of the recruiting university and are not allowed to receive remuneration nor funding from other sources. This means that once you sign the fellowship agreement with the Host Institute at the CIVIS3i recruiting university, you should go on unpaid leave from the institution you have been based at or give up the current employment.

External experts are chosen by using existing databases of experts (EC, CIVIS3i partner universities, AMU’s A*MIDEX Foundation, etc.). The selection of the experts is based on the following criteria:

• The external expert has an active publication track-record in the specific field with several peer reviewed publications and citations per publication (excluding self-citations) during the last ten years.
• The external experts have to confirm that they (i) never co-published with the candidate (ii) did not co-publish neither with the candidate’s PhD advisor nor with the local host at the recruiting university in the five years prior to the evaluation process.

You can see all the details describing the CIVIS3i evaluation process on the Guidelines for Evaluators, available on the CIVIS3i website.

No, the number of fellowships per recruiting university is fixed, regardless of the number of applications received.

Yes, at each call there will be an interview with the candidates that pass the first stage of evaluation (double peer-revision). After the double peer-revision stage is completed, all applications will be ranked and the 32 best-ranked applications will be shortlisted and selected for an interview with the Selection Committee. The number of candidates to interview per recruiting university will be the double of the number of fellowships offered for each university (AMU: 5 positions, 10 interviews; ULB: 4 positions, 8 interviews; SUR: 3 positions, 6 interviews; UAM, 4 positions, 8 interviews). The three steps of the evaluation are:

• Eligibility check
• First Evaluation Stage: Remote experts evaluation by double peer-revision
• Second Evaluation Stage: Selection Committee interview

You can see all the details describing the CIVIS3i evaluation process on the Guidelines for Evaluators, available on the CIVIS3i website.

Yes. After the interview with the Selection Committee, the 16 best-ranked applications will be selected for funding. The 16 remaining shortlisted applications will be either on a reserve list or rejected. If a candidate selected for funding decides not to accept the CIVIS3i position, the 17th ranked applicant in the reserve list will be offered the fellowship and the process will continue until all fellowships per recruiting university are granted. The reserve list will also be done per recruiting university.

For each CIVIS3i Call, there will be a separate reserve list. It will consist of a maximum of 16 researchers per each call.

Should the final list of 16 applicants not suffice to cover all fellowships in one of the CIVIS3i recruiting universities, the open fellowship places of this university will be transferred to the next call (only valid for the First Call).

The experts will evaluate the proposal based on an evaluation sheet. Three main aspects will be considered: excellence, impact and implementation. Within the excellence criterion, evaluators are invited to consider “the track record of the candidate in relation to the level of experience” (Guide for Evaluators).

The list of potential supervisors published on the website provides contact information for researchers who have agreed to potentially supervise CIVIS3i fellows. Nevertheless, the CIVIS3i supervisor may be any individual in possession of a PhD, employed at one of the institutes of the CIVIS3i recruiting universities. Thus, should you not find the right person listed, please identify your potential supervisor directly on the institutes’ websites.

CIVIS3i fellows will be supervised by a team of three individuals: one main advisor, a co-advisor, and a secondment mentor.

The main advisoris affiliated to the recruiting university; The co-advisor is affiliated to the co-host university; The secondment mentor is affiliated/employed by the secondment organization chosen by the candidate. The secondment mentor must be a different person than the advisor and co-advisor.

If already identified at the time of submission, candidates are required to contact the supervision team before submitting their application. At the minimum, candidates are required to have already identified, contacted and obtained a letter of acceptance from the main advisor. It is recommended to identify all elements of the research proposal, including the supervision team, the co-host institute and secondment before submitting the application. However, if such elements are not fully defined upon the call deadline, they can be defined at a later stage.

The triple supervision/mentoring in CIVIS3i will have a research dimension but also a training and career support dimension.

The main academic advisor will facilitate the proper integration of the fellow in the local research environment and will support the fellow in achieving the planned scientific and training goals. To ensure that the fellowship will have a significant impact on the fellow’s future career prospects, the advisor and the fellow will establish a yearly Career Development Plan that will summarise the fellow’s individual training programme (research and transferable skills trainings) and career prospects beyond the project. The main advisor will work closely with the co-advisor and the mentor to ensure a coherent supervision and guidance, especially on training and career development. A follow-up report will be addressed every six months to the CIVIS3i management team by the advisor and the fellow to guarantee a good progress of the individual project.

The role of the CIVIS3i co-advisor is to ensure the international and interdisciplinary dimensions of the project are met. The co-advisor will be a researcher with complementary knowledge and expertise that will support the CIVIS3i fellow in addressing the interdisciplinary dimension of the research project and will guide the fellow to take full advantage of the cross-fertilisation of disciplines, methodologies and techniques. Interdisciplinarity collaboration can be implemented through virtual means, research visits. The number and duration of research visits to the co-host is to be defined in accordance to the project’s objectives. The co-host organization and the co-advisor must be different from the secondment organization and mentor. The co-host must be chosen among the CIVIS Alliance’s 10 Universities.

 

The non-academic mentor will be appointed by the non-academic partner to support the fellow and ensure intersectoral collaboration. A mentor will support, give advice and guidance, bring in their professional network. The mentor will play a significant role in the career prospects of the fellow by promoting access and integration into the socio-economic sector, advising the fellow on training needs that are coherent with the industrial needs, share their professional experience, their network and give advice on pursuing career goals and developing an attractive professional profile. The mentor will be selected by the candidate in collaboration with the main advisor. The mentor should preferably have a different scientific background from the candidate. The secondment organization can be selected from the list of 24 non-academic CIVIS3i partners or outside of this list.

It is recommended to have a mentoring/co-supervision scheme consisting of at least three interactions per year (e.g., phone call, video conferences, emails) and one face-to-face meeting per year if possible. The fellow mentee should perform a summary report after each interaction, validated by the mentor. This recommended mentoring scheme should be adapted to the objectives of each project.

CIVIS3i is an H2020 project, so there are certain commitments to the European Commission that CIVIS3i fellows will have to follow, and some of them will need the contribution of the supervisors.

For instance, a final report will be expected about the actual work conducted, explaining any deviations from the planned work, which needs to be approved by the supervisor.

Supervisors will have to take part in the Career Development Plan of the fellow, which is expected to be refined during the first three months of the fellowship and must be revised every 6 months during the fellowship; there will be a “supervision day” organised by the CIVIS3i management team to allow supervisors to be trained for the coaching in career development. The CIVIS3i Career Advisor and the Local Career Advisors at each of the partner universities will assist in the Career Development tasks. Supervisors may help the CIVIS3i fellows to identify relevant training courses and events, to develop the fellows’ skills and network, beyond their discipline and sector. Supervisors will also be responsible for identifying together with the candidate a training plan in interdisciplinary and intersectoral research, through generic training at their universities or CIVIS3i, as well as through events more specifically related to the research project and its interdisciplinary theme.

Supervisors will have to validate the fellows’ progress reports to be sent yearly to the CIVIS3i management team. Such progress reports must follow certain criteria to meet the commitments with the EC, such as report on the progress of the research relatively to the work plan and any deviations and mitigation actions, dissemination activities and outputs (research publications, conferences, outreach activities, etc), reporting their Data Management Plans and usage of Open Access to Research Data (the CIVIS3i management team will assist supervisors and fellows in that task), report on the training and career development, and any ethics issues relevant to the funded fellow’s research.

Yes, but the candidates must have different research projects.

To supervise an application, you must hold at least a PhD degree, be a permanent scientific or academic at one of the CIVIS3i recruiting universities, have experience in supervision, and a career level above that of the postdoctoral fellow.

Secondments are research or training visits to another academic or non-academic organization offering expertise that is not existing in the host group. Secondments can be included to support the intersectoral and interdisciplinary dimensions of the research project and the fellow’s career development. A secondment must be meaningful, justified and helpful to achieve the objectives of the project. Secondments are different from research stays at the co-host institute.

Intersectoral exposure can be implemented in the project, for instance, by including dialogue with socio-economic actors, participating in industry networking events contributing to expand the fellow’s career prospects, etc. Secondments can also support the research project, the training programme (i.e., career development) or the dissemination activities (e.g., outreach).

Yes, secondment periods are required and facilitated within the CIVIS3i partners and beyond them.

CIVIS3i secondments have a duration of 3 months overall. The secondment can be broken down into shorter periods, but overall it must be 3 months.

The organization of secondment must be described in detail. There is no geographical restriction, but CIVIS3i has a network of 24 partners already committed to receive CIVIS3i fellows and give them full support and mentorship.

No. At the application stage, no letters from a secondment institution are required, although applicants may include them in the optional documents section if they wish so. Please note, however, you must describe your secondment’s plan in your application, if already defined.

No. The CIVIS3i fellowship, ie, the 2-year postdoctoral fellowship for the researcher, is allocated only for the research and training of the fellows themselves. This means that the host laboratory will not be in charge of some types of expenses (missions, travel, training, laboratory consumables, small equipment, documentation, etc.). The CIVIS3i coordination and financial officers will be very attentive to how the fellowship funds are used to ensure that the fellowship is not misused by the host laboratories.

Host institutes/laboratories must contribute financially to ensure that the CIVIS3i fellow will have all the support needed to timely conduct their planned work and achieve the planned objectives (classic cost of a research environment). The CIVIS3i project management funds are not designed to give laboratories an additional budget; its use is intended for the organization of training events, governance, etc. related directly to the CIVIS3i fellow and their projects.

Projects will be evaluated on their merit; however, ethical issues will also be assessed. A research project that is not in accordance with the ethical rules in force in the country of the recruiting university and the European Union may be rejected.

The required Ethics Issues Form and Ethics Self-Assessment. As part of their application, CIVIS3i candidates will be asked, on the online submission platform, to fill in a table of issues (similar to a questionnaire) in order to identify which ethical problems may appear in their projects. Once an ethical issue is flagged by the applicant on the online form (yes/no answers), the candidate must indicate where the issue is found on the research and training proposal (page number, subtitle if applicable), what are the EU and national ethics legislation applicable, and is required to describe how the ethical issue will be handled.

Please be aware that it is the applicants' responsibility to identify any potential ethical issues, to handle the ethical aspects of the proposal and to detail how these aspects will be addressed. The appropriateness of the measures proposed will be assessed by ethics experts during the ethics review, which is a part of the overall evaluation procedure.

All applicants are required to complete an Ethics Issues Form in the online application platform. Preparing the Ethics Self-Assessment is obligatory only if an applicant answered “YES” to any question specified in the Ethics issues online form. So, if candidates reply "YES" to any question on the Ethics Issues Form (online), they will be required to “describe how the project meets the EU relevant legislation on Ethics and the National legislation and good practices on research ethics”.  Applicants can find an example of the ethics self-assessment form on the CIVIS3i Guide for Applicants.

In the ethics self-assessment, applicants should explain the ethical aspect of their research regarding the objectives, methodology and possible implications of their project. They should also explain how the planned research will comply with the fundamental ethical principles, as well as the relevant European and international legislation and regulations.

Please be aware that it is the applicants' responsibility to identify any potential ethical issues, to handle the ethical aspects of the proposal and to detail how these aspects will be addressed. The appropriateness of the measures proposed will be assessed by ethics experts during the ethics review, which is a part of the overall evaluation procedure.

For more details, please refer to the H2020 “How to complete your Ethics Self-Assessment” guide.

Ethics permits and authorizations can be optionally uploaded to the “Other optional documents” on the CIVIS3i submission portal as part of your application.