The first Smart Loire Valley (SLV) Fellowship Programme co-funded by the European Research Executive Agency – Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND was launched on 9th November 2015, followed by the second, third and fourth and last calls for projects
respectively launched as scheduled in November 2016, November 2017 and November 2018. The grant contract initially planned to run till October 2020 was extended to October 2021 to cope with a series of delays in fellowships' starting dates, cancellations and eventually the COVID-19 sanitary crisis.
The SLV Fellowships programme offered an average of twelve LE STUDIUM Fellowships awards per year (12 consecutive months of residency) in all research disciplines to boost international scientific exchanges in the region Centre-Val de Loire (CVL) through the establishment of international, sustainable and quality scientific collaborations. LE STUDIUM Fellows benefits included a salary, a fully furnished housing and the opportunity to take part in and to organise international scientific events. The annual call for projects offered two additional award’s types that were not co-financed by the MSCA: the LE STUDIUM Professorship (12-month residency spread over 4 years) and LE STUDIUM Consortium (international networking actions).
The SLV Fellowships Calls for Projects were widely advertised on many specialized research platforms and across the international scientific community through LE STUDIUM network and the regional partners. Consequently, LE STUDIUM has seen its website traffic increased significantly and counted more than 60 Fellowships applications for the last campaign. The evaluation and selection procedure involved the collaboration of more than 300 international experts per year and the gathering of a LE STUDIUM international 25-member Scientific Council in June of each year in Orléans, FR.
As committed, fourty-eight LE STUDIUM / Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellows were awarded a one-year fellowship in a host laboratory of the Centre-Val de Loire region: at end of October 2021, fourty-six had finished their residency. Late cancellations of awards for personal reasons and/or due the 2020-2021 Covid-19 sanitary crisis reduced the total number of fellows able to honour their award. Remaining months of cancelled residencies were dispatched accross the fellows in residence having expressed this wish through a open and transparent expression of interest offer distributed to all. An online Scientific Council took place in December 2021 to state on these fellowships extension request. A total of five fellows saw their residence extended between two to six months. Two Fellows had previously benefited from 1-month extension in 2017 and 2018 to enable them to achieve their research projects' objectives.One fellow benefited from a special arrangement to split his residency in two periods,. This opportunity had already been granted once for a maternity leave in 2016-2017 .
With 23 countries represented, the geographical origin of awarded fellows displays as 67% from Europe, 26% from North America and South America, 4% from Asia and 1% from Africa. The gender balance though not fully achieved reflects an increased number of women applications and awards with a total of 18 awards attributed to women in total equaling to 39% of Le Studium fellows under this grant.
