European Peer Review Guide - European Science Foundation

5.
Individual Research
Programmes and Career
Development Programmes
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5.1 Purpose and scope
Although very different in scope and objectives,
Individual Research Programmes and Career
Development Programmes share commonalities in
their implementation and their required peer review
steps. Hence, the detailed process description for
adopted good practices on peer review is described
for both instruments in this chapter.
Individual Research Programmes are intended
to finance research projects enabling individual
researchers to pursue their ideas and projects.
Collaboration and networking are often not explicitly
promoted and covered by Individual Research
Programmes. Under these programmes, each grant
is awarded to one research team with one budget
line and one set of work-plan and research objectives.
Career Development Programmes are intended to
support career progression of researchers and scholars
and to recognise their achievements.
The main purpose of Individual Research
Programmes, whether thematic or non-thematic,
is to support scientific research. Therefore, the
main focus of these programmes is on the research
being proposed. This is in contrast with the Career
Development Programmes in which the main focus
is on the proposers of the research and on supporting
or recognising their career progression and achieve-
ments through awards, fellowships, appointments,
professorships, Chairs, etc.46,47.
Breakthrough research applications may be
supported in particular for Individual Research
Programmes where the speculative, experimental or
exploratory nature of the work means that results
or outcomes are uncertain or cannot be guaranteed,
i.e., a significant degree of risk is present in achieving
the anticipated breakthroughs (see Section 4.10
of this Guide for the peer review features that need
to considered). Furthermore, some types of more
advanced Career Development grants could also
contain higher levels of risks. As an example, academy
professorships in Estonia are granted according
to the past achievements of the applicants while
providing them with great flexibility on how to use
their grants in conducting their research.
There is a significant degree of variation in the
aims, target groups, length of funding, etc. across the
various Career Development Programmes, including,
for example, awards that are given in recognition of
outstanding contributions to a particular research
field either with or without a bursary (e.g., EMBO
Gold Medal, valued at 10,000 €48); awards which
also provide substantial funding for research (e.g.,
NWO Spinoza Prize, providing up to 2.5 M€49); first
postdoctoral research fellowships and professorships
for two or more years. Furthermore, there are
European Peer Review Guide
46. Scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students to
further their education and training. Fellowship is a stipend, or
a financial endowment, to support graduate students and, most
often, postdoctoral candidates in completing or enhancing their
academic careers (teaching or research).
47. The definitions of the career steps are very heterogeneous. A
first attempt to develop taxonomy (and a common terminology)
for research career can be found in: European Science Foundation
(2009) Research Careers in Europe. Landscape and Horizons.
48. http://www.embo.org/aboutembo/embo-gold-medal.html
49. http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOP_5VNCW6_Eng