Donders-BMI Exchange Trainee Programme

The Donders Institute (DI) and the Brain and Mind Institute (BMI) are pleased to announce their fourth internal call for proposals to support the exchange of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows (PDf) for collaborative research visits, to be performed during the duration of their training or employment.

The funding, secured primarily by the DI through the Erasmus⁺ Programme, is intended to allow trainees to gain international research experience and extend their skillset, and to help establish new collaborative research programs between PIs at the Donders Institute and at Western University.

Visits of up to two months can be funded in a period from now until July 2020; longer visits are possible but require co-funding. Applications for visits where a source of co-funding or additional funding has already been secured will be prioritized.

Grants may be awarded up to the cost of the flight (up to €820) and a living allowance (max €7.392 for a 2-month visit), following the guidelines of the Erasmus program.

Applications include:

1. Personal information, including contract duration and stage of training
2. A statement outlining the overall objectives of the mobility, the research activities to be carried out during the visit and expected outcomes and impact. The statement should also include details on the added value of the mobility, for DI and Western, and for the applicant (max 2 pages, 12 points times new roman, line space 1.5).
3. Start and end date of the intended visit.
4. Rough estimation of the costs, including details of any other available sources of funding.
5. Curriculum vitae (max 2 pages);
6. Two letters of support of both the sending and hosting PIs with whom the collaboration will be established.

Only one application per trainee is allowed. Applications should be sent as a single pdf document containing all elements requested. Deadline for application is October 1st, 2019. The funding must be spent before 1 July 2020, and before the end of the trainee’s contract or graduate tenure. Following the completion of the exchange, successful applicants, working with the respective PIs at each institution, will provide a short report detailing research outcomes and future plans for the collaboration.

Applications will be reviewed by a committee of members of DI and BMI who will rank them in terms of research project, feasibility, research and training goals, motivation, CV, career development, novelty of the collaboration, and benefit for DI-Western partnership.

Deadline of the full application is October 1st, 2019, to be sent to gradschool@donders.ru.nl. The results of this competition are expected to be announced end of October.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Femke Maij (DI graduate school coordinator)

Prof. dr. Brian Corneil (BMI, bcorneil@uwo.ca)

Prof. dr. Pieter Medendorp (DI, p.medendorp@donders.ru.nl)