The ‘NWA Innovative projects within routes’ Call for proposals 2024 is open to receive innovative small research proposals. The NWA has made a budget of €300.000 per route available to financially support the 25 NWA routes with funds to address the focus areas within the route’s Agenda. Therefore, the management of the NWA route ‘Materialen – Made in Holland’ is calling on the field to submit innovative proposals. The procedure for submission and guidelines is explained below.

Call for Proposals NWA Innovative projects within routes 2024 for NWA route ‘Materialen – Made in Holland’

The NWA route ‘Materialen – Made in Holland’ hereby calls for research proposals in the materials field for a small research project, carried out by a post-doc, of maximum €100,000. The project should directly contribute to focus areas as described in the Dutch Materials Agenda. The full text of the NWA Call for proposals can be found on the NWO website and in the call.

Within this Call for proposals, applicants can apply for a grant for innovative projects on behalf of the NWA routes. These projects must contribute to the substantive renewal of the NWA route in question. The proposals made in collaboration with one or more societal organisations must focus on:

  • an innovative idea;
  • promotion of utilisation of existing knowledge;
  • or the synthesis of existing knowledge to identify blank spots in the knowledge agenda, ambitions and gamechangers of the route;
  • or a combination of these elements.

New and unexpected connections are made in the projects across the overall knowledge chain of societal organisations. The projects contribute to increasing the societal and scientific impact of the route and the activities undertaken as part of the route. Relevance within the NWA programme and thus commitment of society, including citizens within the projects, is of importance.

Guidelines

For more background info and general conditions for application, we refer to the NWA call page. Proposals must be written in accordance with these general guidelines.

Specifications for projects within the NWA Route ‘Materialen – Made in Holland’

Total budget available: €300,000.

Project budget: maximum of €100,000.

Project duration: maximum of 2 years.

What to apply for: The project budget should be allocated for a post-doc position. The project is aimed at enabling the continuation of an already running research line within the focus areas as described in the Dutch Materials Agenda. This candidate researcher (PhD or Postdoc) is currently involved with or connected to the research group through collaboration or employment, is an excellent researcher and is unemployed or is available at the time of the award. In the scope of the ongoing project, it should be clear how this additional Innovative project will bring significant benefits. In the proposal, the CV of the researcher, the current research he or she is working on, and a motivation on the importance and goals for this additional year should be outlined.

Timeline

  • Deadline for submitting project proposals to the route management: Monday 19 August 2024, 14:00 CEST by sending an email to routematerialen@nwo.nl
  • Selection of 3 proposals by route management: Monday 2 September 2024
  • Deadline submission of selected proposals in ISAAC by applicants: Thursday 12 September 2024, 14:00 CEST
  • Decision NWO Executive Board on proposals: February 2025
  • Latest date to start project: August 2025

Apllication and assesment procedures

The application will consist of:

  • Completed Application form NWA Innovative Projects 2024 (Attachment 1, submit as pdf)
  • Completed Budget sheet (Attachment 2, submit as MS Excel format).
  • Motivation (250 words maximum) why the young researcher is the best candidate for the proposed research and what the relationship with the research group is.
  • Curriculum Vitae of candidate researcher who will carry out the 1-year post-doc project (max 1 page) in PDF format.

Send this application to routematerialen@nwo.nl

After submission of the research proposal the route management of the NWA route ‘Materialen – Made in Holland’ (for members see below) will select three proposals using the following procedure. The route management will first check submitted proposals on conformity with the NWA Call and their fit within the Dutch Materials Agenda.

Proposals that pass the checks will advance to the next stage, where the route management will decide on which proposals to submit to NWO based on lottery. If the route management receives three or less proposals that are eligible for preferential treatment, these proposals will be selected given they pass the above-mentioned checks. If more than three proposals eligible for preferential treatment are received, the route management will select three proposals out of this selection by lottery.

The results of the lottery selection will be communicated to the applicants via email. The applicants of three selected proposals will receive a statement form from the route figurehead, which is mandatory to have to be able to submit their proposal in ISAAC before Thursday 12 September 2024, 14:00 CET.

Members of the NWA Materials route management

Arjan Mol (TUD)

Gertjan Koster (UT)

Katja Loos (RUG)

René Janssen (TU/e)

Corentin Coulais (UvA)

Hans van der Weijde (TATA Steel R&D)

Guus Rijnders (UT)

Alexander Khajetoorians (RU)

Rolf van Benthem (Shell / TU/e)

Esther Alarcon Llado (AMOLF)

Anja Bieberle (DIFFER)

NWO secretaries: Eliane van Dam (NWO domain Science) and Aafje Sierksma (NWO domain Applied & Engineering Sciences)

Attachment 1 application_form_nwa-kpr_2024_def

Attachment 2 budgetsheet