In the 6 months leading up to the official start of the project on April 1, 2019, the steering committee was installed, the project office - coordinated between the NCCR MUST and RESOLV offices - was established, the financial management by the ETH Zurich financial administration was set up, and the FP-RESOMUS website with forms and questionnaires was developed. With this in place, the FP-RESOMUS office started the execution and coordination of the program. In the period up to March 31, 2021, three Calls for Applications with deadlines 28.2.2019 31.1.2020 and 30.11.2020 were announced on the FP-RESOMUS website and using a diverse range of online channels as well as in international/national events. Women were especially encouraged to apply. The website contained detailed information on how to apply and included a form to check if candidates meet the eligibility criteria of the MSCA-funding and our own criteria (now off-line).
In the three calls, 89, 45 and 98 potential candidates from 46 different countries applied, about 90% of which were eligible. These candidates subsequently - or had before - contacted a potential host PI with whom the research proposal was developed. The reviewing and selection process was organized as described on the website, and in the three calls, 14, 16 and 17 candidates were admitted to the program: in total 47 fellowships were allocated to candidates from 20 different countries. One fellow was not able to start the project for personal reasons. Three of the 14 fellows appointed after Call 1, one in Call 2, and four in Call 3, ended their fellowships early because they accepted new positions as Assistant Professor, tenured scientist, or postdoc in other research groups. The available fellowship months were redistributed amongst the other fellows.
By the end of March 2024, the fellows published 107 open-access, peer-reviewed papers and 1 book chapter, which acknowledge financial support by the FP-RESOMUS Fellowship Program. We organised 12 conferences, mainly aimed at the NCCR MUST and RESOLV networks and associated research groups.
All fellows were actively encouraged to participate in transferable skills workshops offered by the networks and the participating institutes, and typically reported 2-3 such activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many workshops between March 2020 and March 2022 were online. This also reduced the number of available places: the offered workshops are often booked out within a few days after publication. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic most fellows could not participate in face-to-face scientific conferences or workshops, however a limited number of online meetings were attended. The travel restrictions during the pandemic have limited the possibilities of secondments, but at least, depending on the project, about 1/3 of the fellows worked with equipment in other laboratories or research institutes (mainly beamtime).
