NWO Vici 2019 open

NWO invites applications for the Vici-call within the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme (Vernieuwingsimpuls). Deadline for submitting preliminary proposals is March 26, 2019. The Vici grant gives senior researchers the opportunity to build up their own research group, often in anticipation of a tenured professorship. Researchers who have obtained their PhD within the last 15 years can apply. The maximum amount of grant will be € 1,500,000.

The Innovational Research Incentives Scheme offers personal grants to talented, creative researchers. The funding enables applicants to do their own line of research. This boosts innovative research and promotes mobility within scientific research institutes. The aim is to promote innovation in academic research and to provide encouragement for individual postdoctoral researchers at various stages of their careers. It is vital to the universities that talented researchers enter the profession and gain promotion within it. Providing creative opportunities for adventurous, talented, pioneering researchers to do research of their own choice and to encourage them to make a permanent career of academic research are therefore key aims of the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme. With a personal grant, researchers have the opportunity to develop their own, innovative line of research which could be structurally embedded in a research institution.

The assessment procedure of the 2019 Vici round aligns with NWO’s new organisational structure. The Vici competition will be assessed by four committees: four committees corresponding to the four new NWO domains. The four committees are Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), NWO-Science domain (ENW), Applied and Engineering Sciences (AES/TTW) and Health Research and Development (ZonMw). Vici applications are assessed in a domain-wide competition, which means that all applications from different disciplines within one domain will be compared in one competition. The domains use broad-based assessment committees of academics to advise on the merits and prioritisation of the applications.

The deadline for the submission of a full proposal is August 27, 2019.