COFUND BIST POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME

Project Information

PROBIST

Grant agreement ID: 754510

DOI

10.3030/754510

Project closed

EC signature date 12 May 2017

Start date 1 December 2017

End date 30 November 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 12 956 400,00

EU contribution

€ 6 478 200,00

Coordinated by

FUNDACIO THE BARCELONA INSTITUTE OFSCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - PROBIST (COFUND BIST POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME)

Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2023-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

PROBIST is an ambitious programme offering 61 three-year fellowships to foster excellence in multidisciplinary postdoctoral research at BIST´s constituent research centres and associated partner institutions (hospitals, private companies, technology centres, and other academic institutions), which will provide opportunities for collaborations and secondments, training, networking activities and other actions to complement the research activities and professional development of the fellows. The PROBIST proposal is presented by the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) as beneficiary, in close collaboration with 5 of the 7 centres that form the BIST community.

BIST, a private non-profit foundation, was created in 2015 as an initiative of the Catalan government to bring together seven Excellent Flagship Catalan research centres that already had a track record of working together: the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the Institute for High EnergyPhysics (IFAE) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the Institute of Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).

The COFUND Postdoctoral Programme goals are:
1. To contribute towards improving conditions for carrying out high-quality research at the research centres and to increase its international visibility.
2. To offer coordinated postgraduate programs of excellence with international impact.
3. To build a critical mass to multiply the capacity of the research centres in different fields, such as knowledge
transfer, scientific and technological platforms and talent attraction.
4. To cooperate with scientific institutions, companies, individuals and public or private entities to fulfil these aims.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work carried out during this period (24-48 months) has been centered in following the fellows already recruited, and has also included a new call of PROBIST fellows. We have been supporting their professional development, promoting the dissemination of the programme and the fellows, and guiding them as needed.
New calls have benefited from lessons learnt and the close monitoring of the fellows has been essential.

1) Management:
a) The team structure deployed by BIST and the 5 research centers involved in the COFUND PROBIST project was already set during the first period, including the BIST COFUND technical committee, BIST Educational Committee, Working groups for communication, and supporting recruitment and financial issues. We have maintained regular communication with all stakeholders to ensure a smooth implementation.
b) We have stablished a communication and working plan to implement successfully the PROBIST programme until the closing.

2) Dissemination:
a) The dissemination efforts realized to launch the 5 calls have been accomplished successfully by attracting more than 1500 applicants from more than 70 different nationalities.
b) Dissemination efforts have been shifted to spread the scientific outputs from fellows. A dissemination plan has been designed with working group of communication.
c) A fifht call was launched to recruit 9 fellows. Dissemination was prepared and implemented accordingly.

3) Evaluation and Selection:
a) The work package of Evaluation and Selection has been successfully completed in this period. We have recruited 9 high skilled postdoctoral researchers to carry out their research projects in one of the hosting BIST Centers, in addition to the ones already recruited during the first period..
b) Standarized processes of evaluation and selection have been transferred to hosting BIST centers for further implementation in each centers as convenience.

4) Ethics:
a) Ethical committees in every hosting BIST center had already been created to support tasks related to ethical issues from the selection process to the development of research and dissemination of results. All research activities carried out at BIST research centers adhere to the fundamentals ethical principles.
b) As i the previous peroiod, the selection process have been managed under strict control of privacy rules. And all candidate were requested to mention if their research were affected by ethical issues.
c) Ethical committees are monitoring specially those fellows that develop research explicated affected by ethical issues and being available to support upcoming ethical issues from PROBIST fellows.

5) Fellows and Career Development:
a) During this period, a group of 9 highly skilled postdoctoral researchers have been recruited to develop cutting edge research in the 5 hosting BIST centers
a. The group have been meeting to discuss their research expertise and current projects to promote collaboration and expand their network in different forums as visiting BIST, BIST Postdoc Day, To the mothers of Science.
b. Training courses have been offered to all fellows to acquire leadership skills and a variety of new courses have been opened to fellows, attending their needs.
c. A BIST career service is still set up to offer guidance to fellows.
d. A feedback regarding career development expectations have been requested to adjust the training programme to the need of the current postdoc community. regular updates are performed, attending the fellow's needs.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The PROBIST COFUND programme by the end of the project will contribute to the improvement of career prospects for researchers in Europe, improve the attractiveness of Catalonia, Spain and Europe as a leading destination for R&I, boost the capacity and visibility of BIST and its centres and further increase the quality of research and innovation developed in Europe. We will also have a group of highly skilled scientists with great training in other fields such as management, leadership, integrity, strategy and others. This should get them ready to successfully tackle any further challenge they chose, inside or outside academia.

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