The State Education Development Agency of Latvia has announced the 4th call for research applications under the activity “Post-doctoral Research Aid”. The deadline for submission is July 20th, 2020.
The purpose of the program is to develop the skills of new scientists and to increase the scientific capacity, ensuring the possibilities for new scientists to start a career in scientific institutions and with enterprises, as well as improvement of research competences, renewal of human resources and increase in the number of qualified specialists.
The target group of the program is postdoctoral researchers – Latvian or foreign researchers – who have acquired a doctoral degree not more than ten years before the deadline for submitting the research application.
A postdoctoral researcher from abroad may implement the following aided activities within the scope of a research application:
- Applied and fundamental,
- Acquisition, approval and defense of intellectual property rights,
- Training, international mobility and networking,
- Knowledge and technology transfer,
- Supervision and reviews of bachelor's, master's and doctoral thesis, and
- Preparation of other research or innovation projects proposals.
In the fourth selection stage, the research applications contributes to achieving the goals of the Smart Specialisation Strategy of the Republic of Latvia, implementation of the growth priorities or development of the specialization areas. The highest score in the evaluation of the criteria “Impact” can get the research applications focused on the study of the impact of COVID-19 and the development of innovative solutions will be supported in the following topics: solving public health issues; development of electronics and information and communication technology solutions, including aimed at health, education, offices, e-government; innovative solutions for business development; and adaptation to the changing circumstances (e.g., emergencies, climate change).
The conditions of the project:
- A research applicant is a scientific institution or enterprise of the Republic of Latvia, which establishes employment relations with a postdoctoral researcher and ensures access to infrastructure and human resources for the implementation of the research necessary within the scope of the research application;
- The maximum total eligible funding of a research application shall be 111,505 euros;
- The maximum duration of the project implementation is 30 months.
One grant is up to 111,505 euros and 30 months to perform research in Latvia, including:
- full time employment contract with salary 2,731 euros per month including all taxes;
- other research expenses, such as costs of materials, protection of technology rights, external services, data processing, training and networking measures, set at 800 euros per month;
- administrative costs set at 185.83 euros per month.
Available funding for the fourth call is 11.4 million euros, including 5.7 million euros for economic research and 5.7 million euros for non-economic research (1.1 million euros is planned for fundamental research).
More about programme and related documents can be found here.
Please do not hesitate to contact Mrs. Līga Mirlina, Senior Expert of Postdoctoral Programme, the State Education Development Agency, liga.mirlina@viaa.gov.lv