Final Report Summary - CLARIN_2013 (Outgoing and Incoming grants scheme 2013-2017)
The project Clarin-COFUND has allowed the funding of post-docs in and out of the Principality of Asturias (Spain) from 2014 until 2020. It has been a keystone in the final stage of training of postdocts before entering senior positions at Research Centres. 65 scientist have benefited of its implementation in the project 6-year lifespan. It has covered both younger new-postdocs giving them the chance to gain valuable experience in foreign research centres and also has permitted a group of more senior scientist to have access to positions at research centres in Asturias. The project is part of the Regional Research Plan and it is worth to highlight it has been very successful. The objective was set in 68 beneficiaries, 44 outgoing grants for junior postdocs and 24 for more senior postdocs in two rounds of Calls, one in 2013-14 and a second one in 2017-18. To achieve the goal we first managed to secure the funding from the Regional Government for the two Calls. There were no area of research restriction, as the programme aimed to train postdocs in a general way. The impact of the grants has been noteworthy, as revealed by the confidential reports they have produced, the overall result has been very positive. Many have secured positions either in Asturias or abroad most of them declaring theire experience be very positive. The support of the COFUND programme has been essential in increasing the number of positions available and the amount of the salaries too.
The promotion of the programme has been done in a very exhaustive way. We have resorted to all the promotion services available at the time, official webpage, Euraxess, Infojob, the official regional and national gazettes, newsletters, personal emails to former contacts that could possibly become interested in, press notes to the media etc. Generally speaking the response of the researchers has been good and there was sufficient number of applicants and we therefore can conclude that the project has been successful. A good number of papers and publication and oral and written communications has been done, more than 575 in all. European and regional funding visibility in the papers was checked-out in all cases. The list of the 65 Host organizations is attached in a pdf document as listing them would make this text illegible. Each Outgoing grant is hosted in a particular research centre around the world, 41 in total, whereas Incoming grants are hosted at several Departments of the University of Oviedo (20 researchers) and 4 at other Regional research centres (INCAR, IPLA ), what reflects the relative size of research potential in the region.
The project was supported by many people in the FICYT (6 people part time) from the training department, IT department and administration department under the supervision of our director, and we have been giving support to beneficiaries all along the the project. We only had a relevant problem when putting together the two sources of funding: Regional funding is subject to strict regulations and consequent delays and this has forced to ask for two extensions of the project in order to accommodate the second Call of the programme, making it a very lasting one.
The promotion of the programme has been done in a very exhaustive way. We have resorted to all the promotion services available at the time, official webpage, Euraxess, Infojob, the official regional and national gazettes, newsletters, personal emails to former contacts that could possibly become interested in, press notes to the media etc. Generally speaking the response of the researchers has been good and there was sufficient number of applicants and we therefore can conclude that the project has been successful. A good number of papers and publication and oral and written communications has been done, more than 575 in all. European and regional funding visibility in the papers was checked-out in all cases. The list of the 65 Host organizations is attached in a pdf document as listing them would make this text illegible. Each Outgoing grant is hosted in a particular research centre around the world, 41 in total, whereas Incoming grants are hosted at several Departments of the University of Oviedo (20 researchers) and 4 at other Regional research centres (INCAR, IPLA ), what reflects the relative size of research potential in the region.
The project was supported by many people in the FICYT (6 people part time) from the training department, IT department and administration department under the supervision of our director, and we have been giving support to beneficiaries all along the the project. We only had a relevant problem when putting together the two sources of funding: Regional funding is subject to strict regulations and consequent delays and this has forced to ask for two extensions of the project in order to accommodate the second Call of the programme, making it a very lasting one.
