ABC Grants

ABC grants are intended to stimulate interfaculty research collaborations that are of an interdisciplinary nature. The overall mission is to come to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cognition, from perception to decision making, from language to music, and from memory to consciousness.
The ABC encourages collaborative projects in which more than one faculty is involved and where there is an integrated plan of how to address a key question in the brain and cognitive sciences in an innovative and interdisciplinary fashion.

The ABC supports four different types of grants.

For all four funds, only members of ABC with a completed PhD, and who have at least 0.5 FTE appointment at the UvA or AMC, can apply.
Proposals for each of these grants need to be supported by one of the host institutes in the UvA who have committed themselves to provide matching funds when such are necessary for the successful completion of the proposed project.

In principle, the grants should start within one year after reception.

Decision procedure

The board of the ABC will make decisions for the ABC Talent grant, ABC VIP grant and ABC Symposium grant, as well as the ABC x IAS grant.

ABC Project grant
An independent committee of experts in the involved disciplines will assess the submissions for the ABC Project grant. The ABC board has no involvement in the evaluation of the ABC Project grant submissions, but will implement the ranking provided by the independent committee, dependent on the available funds.

In the review process the following weights will be used: quality of the proposed research: 0.5, interdisciplinary focus: 0.3, quality applicants: 0.2. To improve the gender balance among laureates, extra weight will be given to proposals of female applicants.

1. ABC Project Grant 2019

1 postdoc or 1 PhD student for 2 years*, max. 250k€

Deadline: January 15, 2019
Aim:         funding new interdisciplinary research projects
Criteria:

• research proposal with an interdisciplinary focus, involvement of at least 2 different faculties
• Innovative research
• fit with one of the research programs in ABC
• postdocs are preferred, but a case can be made for a PhD student proposal (the maximum funding will be the same, however, €250k)
• if the to be appointed post doc is already known, their cv should be added
• *In case of clinical research with patients, a request can be made to extend the funding to a longer period. This should be included in the budget estimation.

The proposal should be submitted by a full ABC member (not the to be appointed postdoc) and include information about the content and innovativeness of the project, possible collaborations within the ABC and in which faculty the postdoc will be appointed.

Proposals will only be considered if there is no ongoing ABC Project or Talent funding.

The grant consists of a lump sum of €250k. The faculty where the postdoc will be appointed should match any exceeding of this budget.

2. ABC Talent

(postdoc) for maximally 1 year, 125k€

Next deadlines:           15 April 2019, 15 September 2019
Aim:                    The grant offers a bridging period for high potential postdocs who aim to apply or have applied for an external research grant.
Who can apply:    ABC members, not the to be appointed postdoc

Criteria:               

• completed PhD (within 3 years since graduation)
• excellent cv (comparable with VENI criteria)
• fit with one of the research programs in ABC
• requirement to apply for a research grant (e.g., VENI NWO, EU)
• intention to spend this grant on research at the UvA

A postdoc can only receive an ABC Grant once.
To be appointed postdocs, who already hold a permanent position at the UvA are not eligible.
Proposals will only be considered if there is no ongoing ABC Project or Talent funding.
In the review process the different elements in the proposal will be weighed as follows: cv: 50%, proposal: 30%, interdisciplinary nature: 20%.

3. ABC Visiting professor (VIP)

costs for travel and accommodation, max. €7.500

Deadlines:           15 April 2019, 15 September 2019
Aim:                     Increasing the visibility and (inter)national reputation of ABC
Who can apply:     ABC members
Criteria:              

• visiting professor is an innovative international researcher
• visiting professor engages in long term collaboration with one of the research programs of ABC, e.g. by supervising PhD students or postdocs
• the hosts commit themselves to organize an ABC conference or workshop involving multiple disciplines crossing multiple faculties with visiting professor as key note speaker

4. ABC Symposium

Matching fund for an ABC related seminar, workshop or symposium (max. €2.500 per proposal)

Deadlines: 15 April 2019, 15 September 2019
Aim:          Increasing the visibility of ABC and supporting inspiring interdisciplinary encounters.
Who can apply: ABC members
Criteria:

• research topic should be related to the research priority area Brain and Cognition
• symposium should involve multiple disciplines crossing multiple faculties