Proposal preparation
Support from External Funds Office
The External Funds Office of INFN Padova offers support to the researchers to access external funding sources, both from European and National, Regional or private origin.
The office performs serveral activities to support a proposal preparation for esternal funds calls, to make sure that the proposals are formally correct before the submission and to assure that the approved projects can be smoothly managed as a result.
The office works in constant cooperation with the local Administration and Director offices, with the central External Funds Division and acts as an interface between the Division and the proposers, taking care of all the necessary procedures, until the publication of the call results.
Vademecum for a proposal preparation
Get in touch with the External Funds Office
The calls for proposals, expecially the European ones, are very competitive, for this reason the preparation of a good projects usually requieres some months and the proposal idea must be developed long before the deadline. In order to take advantege both from the local and the central support, it’s necessary to inform this Office as soon as possibile, not later than three months before the deadline.
If you are planning to submit your own proposal or to take part in someone else’s project send an email to External Funds Office, even if the decision to submit is not taken already. The Office will help you to fine the best call in acording to each candidate situation.
Each proposal must obtain the Director’s authorization to be submitted. In order to obtain it the proposers are reuqired to fill a form with all the local resources they are planning to use in the project.
When Padova is the leading INFN Division, a working group will be set up, composed by the Director, one member of the External Funds Office, one from the Administration and one from each other Service involved in the project. The proposer will be invited to explain his project through a brief talk to the group to focus on specifical issues that need to be discussed.
Get in touch with the Administration Office
To obtain the Director’s authorization to submit it is necessary that the financial parts of the proposal are checked and approved by the Administration Office.
When Padova is the leading INFN Division this is performed during the working group meeting, otherwise he will be invited to get in touch with the Administration Office in adavance before the call deadline.
Advice for the proposers to ERC and MSCA calls
The INFN proposals to be submitted to ERC and MSCA calls are supported with a specific attention by the central External Funds Division, besides the local External Funds and Administration Offices.
For these kind of proposals, expecially in case of no previous experience, proponents are reccomended to start to prepare the project several months before the deadline and to sent a written expression of intereset (including an abstract) to the local External Funds Office not later than three months before the deadline.
The External Funds Office will put the candidates in touch with the Ufficio Ricerca Eccellenza of the central External Funds Division, that supports these candidates.
In this page there is a collecction of useful documents for the proposal preparation.
After the evaluation
After the call outcomes, a copy of the Evaluation letter must be sent to the External Funds Office, together with the the invitation to negotiate if the project is selected for funding.