The Eu-SPRI member organisators are invited to submit proposals for Early Career Research Training Schools (ECS).
The Eu-SPRI Forum aims to support the intellectual and career development of early career SPRI researchers (doctoral candidates; Postdocs), most notably through doctoral programmes, conferences, summer schools and mobility between the partner groups.
Our field of research and innovation policy studies is diverse and has homes in different disciplinary areas. Young Eu-SPRI researchers need dedicated events to acquire and exchange knowledge in two directions:
• Methods-based schools for acquiring new capabilities
• Topic-based schools.
ECS will be hosted by one or more Eu-SPRI member organisations and will be offered by senior scholars in the field. The Eu-SPRI Forum supports one summer and one winter school per year with some 25 students each. The maximum support for a school to 20.000 euros (for organisation and all actual incurred costs for participants once present, no travel costs).
This call asks for applications for ECS to be organised by April 2024 at the latest.Date of the event should be coordinated with the Executive Committee of Eu-SPRI.
Please note that an ECS applied for under this call complements the existing EU-SPRI series of recurrent training schools, see https://euspri-forum.eu/next-generation/ for more detail.
Proposals should be submitted by e-mail to Eu-SPRI Forum secretariat: debbie.cox@manchester.ac.uk. The Eu-SPRI Forum Executive Committee will decide the selection of training schools by end of April 2023.
Call for proposals for Doctoral Researchers and Early Career Researchers
Next deadline: 11th June 2023
The circulation of Early Career and PhD Researchers between the member organisations, is an important element of the training activities of the Eu-SPRI Forum network. It is part of the development of the European Training Platform, which the Eu-SPRI Forum aims to develop in the area of science and innovation policy studies. It addresses our objective of offering a European pathway to Early Career and PhD researchers in this field.
Member organisations are:
Université Paris-Est, Institut Francilien Recherche Innovation Société (IFRIS)
Copenhagen Business School (CBS)
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Spain
Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche (CNR), IRCRES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth, Rome
Politecnico di Milano
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden
University of Manchester, Institute of Innovation Research
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe, Germany
NIFU, Norway
University of Twente, Institute of Innovation and Governance Studies (IGS)
VTT, in collaboration with Helsinki Institute of Science and Technology Studies (HIST)
UiO, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo
SPRU, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Innovation Studies, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development , Universiteit Utrecht
TNO, Netherlands Organisation of Applied Scientific Research
TUD, Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund, ZWE der TU-Dortmund
Rathenau Institute — KNAW
This call is open to Doctoral Researchers, in member organisations, in their second year of PhD thesis or beyond and Early Career Researchers, in member organisations, who have completed their PhD within the past 36 months.
Topic Areas supported
This mobility call is restricted to research topics relating to science, technology and innovation policy including studies of science, technological innovation processes and entrepreneurship which may have relevance for policy.
Candidates can decide to apply for a short mobility call (up to one month visiting) or a regular mobility call (at least 3 months of visiting).
How to apply
You must first discuss your proposed short term or regular visit with a potential supervisor at your chosen host institution. Both the ‘Home’ institute and ‘Host’ institute must be members of the Eu-SPRI Forum Network. You must confirm that they are prepared to accept you if your proposal is selected.
(This does not need to be signed by all parties at application stage)
A Curriculum Vitae
Letter / email of support from Host Supervisor
Letter / email of support from Home Supervisor
1 other academic reference
Your application will be evaluated by a committee from the Eu-SPRI Forum Training Group. You will be informed of the outcome when a decision has been made (within 1 month).
Application guidelines
The proposed location should be in a different “national system” so that the researcher experiences a different institutional environment. An application to move, for example, within the Netherlands would not be accepted.
Length of circulation visit should be at least 3 months for regular circulation and up to 1 month for short-term circulation. The three months can be split into tranches.
In the Letter of Intent, be as specific as possible about what you intend to do at your host institute. Detail why you wish to visit that particular institute; how it will contribute to your research; what you hope to achieve.
Prepare your proposal thoroughly, look at the criteria for selection and make a good case. The awards are competitive and you need to present yourself well. Have a specific objective for the stay. This could be to work on an area of theory with experts or to undertake fieldwork in a different country, for example. Think about the potential benefits which may arise in the longer term. Make sure you put in sufficient material to convince the reviewers. If you apply for a short-term circulation you have to clearly explain why such a short-term visiting is sufficient to reach the research objective of the stay.
Ensure that the place you want to visit is a good match for you and your work and make sure that the researcher(s) you want to work with will actually be there and are willing to host you. Making preliminary enquiries about practical arrangements is also a good idea. However, if someone at another institution has agreed in principle to accept you, your proposal may still be subject to a request for further revision or rejected.
Ask someone (perhaps your supervisor) to review your proposal before you submit it.
Your research must be relevant to the Eu-SPRI Forum Network. For more information see the website.
Both the ‘PhD Home’ institute and ‘Host’ institute must be members of the Eu-SPRI Forum Network. Therefore, you may only apply to institutes that are ‘Early Career/PhD Hosts’ within Eu-SPRI Forum Network. Full members are listed on the website.
The criteria for evaluating proposals are:
Quality of the candidate
Quality of the ECR/PhD project
Relevance of the project to Eu-SPRI
Expected benefits of stay for host institution
Expected benefits of stay for research career and/or PhD studies
Balance of student flows (only for regular circulation)
Further details
Eu-SPRI will award a lump sum of €2,500 per regular visit candidate (for travel expenses and accommodation) and up to €1,200 for short-term candidates. This will be paid once the awardee is in situ at the host organisation.
If your application is successful, the letter of Intent must then be signed by all parties who must agree to the terms outlined in it.
On completion of the circulation you must provide a Circulation Report to the Eu-SPRI network which may be placed on the website. This is a mandatory requirement.
Between February 8 and 10, INGENIO hosted the 7th edition of its Eu-SPRI Early Career Conference, this time entitled “Addressing old and new social challenges: knowledge, policies, inclusion”. The event, which is organized entirely by PhD students for PhD students, gathered more than 60 early career researchers from 30 different academic institutions. Particularly strong representation was recorded from the host institution, but also Gran Sasso Science Institute and Politecnico di Milano in Italy. Over the span of three days, the participants had the chance to present their work in a friendly and welcoming environment, receive constructive feedback from senior researchers and briefly step into the shoes of reviewers by discussing each others’ written abstracts. Thematically, the 22 parallel sessions encompassed a wide range of issues – from sustainability transitions and green technologies to feminist organizational change, ethics, and gender-lens investing.
“I think this conference was very informative and heartwarming” – shared An Yu (University of Manchester) – “which is really fitting for early-career PhD students like myself. I’ve been encouraged by this experience and have more faith in my academic career.”
A notable highlight in the opening day of the conference was the keynote address of Professor Elisa Giuliani from the University of Pisa, whose research on the dark side of innovation captivated the attention of the young scholars and elicited a stimulating discussion on the need to prioritize early detection of harmful substances and company practices, before they reach the market. On the following day, Professor Lars Coenen from the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences delivered the second keynote address of the event, which highlighted both the opportunities and the challenges of implementing missions, transformations and experimentalist policy approaches on the ground.
“I would like to thank you again for the wonderful work that you did in organising such a vibrant conference. I loved being part of it and I think it was one of the best conferences I have attended so far.” – Knarik Poghosyan, TU-Dortmund
In addition, the program featured two highly interactive 1.5-hour workshops. The first one, structured as a round table with two panelists – Elisa Giuliani and Francesco Rentocchini – tackled the intricacies of the publishing process, and provided a safe space for students to ask what they’ve always wanted to know: what makes a good manuscript; what issues are important to editors; how to navigate the uncertainty, ethical questions, and more. In the second workshop, Elisabetta Marinelli, a Principal Consultant from Technopolis Group, started off assessing the expectations of the students in the room in real time before debunking some of the most common misconceptions about working in academia, policy-making or the intersection between the two.
The rigorous discussions indoors were accompanied by informal socializing during the coffee breaks on INGENIO´s (mostly) sunny terrace. The Gala Dinner, hosted in a traditional Valencian restaurant, also offered ample opportunities for networking between PhD students, senior researchers and external guest speakers. All in all, this year’s edition of the PhDays continued a strong tradition of successful and widely popular Eu-SPRI Early Career Conferences at INGENIO.
