A boost for mobility postdocs at Belgian universities
Since 2006, the French-speaking Community of Belgium has organised its eight universities into three Academies. The Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) is part of the “Academie Universitaire Louvain” (AUL) which comprises three more universities: the Facultés universitaires de Mons (FUCAM), the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur (FUNDP) and the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, Brussels (FUSL). While the AUL was dissolved in 2013, their collaboration continued. The Research Department of the UCL coordinated the EU-funded IPOD (Academie universitaire Louvain incoming post-doc fellowships) project. Having previously managed the researcher mobility programme “Bourses post-doctorales à l’accueil de post-doctorants étrangers”, UCL and other partner universities offering similar programmes applied for co-funding from the European Commission to improve this scheme. The coordinated administration contributed to greater visibility of their research programmes and improved attractiveness for foreign researchers. Moreover, the increased budget, from 600 000 EUR to 900 000 EUR allowed for more postdoctoral positions to be funded, with a higher success rate. Additionally, thanks to the co-funding of 40 % obtained from the European Commission, the annual budget increased to 1.5 million EUR. Overall, IPOD served as a mobility programme that offered research fellowships to experienced post-PhD researchers based anywhere except Belgium. The fellowship durations ranged from 12 to 24 months at one of 154 research entities within the academy system. The fellowship was addressed to researchers holding a doctoral degree or having a four-year full-time equivalent research experience since obtaining a university diploma. Postdoctoral researchers with a maximum of 6 years of post-doc were also eligible. A total of 73 fellowships were funded for the whole duration of the programme. The majority of the researchers hailed from the EU, mainly France, Italy and Spain. The non-EU researchers came from a range of countries, from Switzerland, Brazil, China and the US to Australia, Colombia, Pakistan, Georgia, Russia, India and Algeria. Not only did the project provide Belgium with a stronger collective research profile, it also increased the country's attractiveness for foreign researchers. In turn, this will drive more effective research.
Keywords
Universities, researcher mobility, postdoctoral research, fellowship, IPOD, funding
