EMS Call for Proposals

The deadline will allow the EMS to present a coherent proposal of activities for EU funding, thereby allowing organisers of single meetings to be part of a series of events. EMS direct support being limited, the result of this application will make a major difference to the funding for the meetings selected by EMS. There will be similar calls every two or three years in the future.

This call for proposals concerns all Summer schools or Conferences that any group of mathematicians – pure or applied - would like to run in 2006, 7 or 8 in the EU or associated states.

The EU guidelines for these events must be followed strictly, in order to have a reasonable hope of funding ( the success rate of EU being extremely low ).

Thus, there must be a very strong component of training of young researchers (in the first 10 years of their career) by means of integrated courses and lectures at advanced level.

This can be supplemented by conference type research lectures, but the training component is needed.

Each courses must aim at an international audience (no more than

30 % of participants should come from a single state, or the event in not eligible for funding ).

The EMS will make a selection amongst the proposals received, taking into consideration the criteria applied by the EU, namely :

-Scientific quality of the project (high quality, cutting edge subject, speakers of high calibre…)

-Quality of the research training activity (training provided to the young researchers, level of interaction between the main speakers and the young one…)

-Quality of the host (quality of infrastructure, experience in running conferences, contact making opportunities…)

-Management and feasibility (organisation and management, plans for publicity, dissemination of the results by publications, web sites, any other means…)

-Relevance to the objectives of the EU action and added value to the EU (relevance of the themes in relation with European interests and achievements, measures taken in favour of gender balance, use for integration of less developed regions, plans to favour public understanding of science…).

In the last two criteria, part of the value comes from the EMS organisation, and this will be added in the final application. However, any little point will count, and each organiser can help by stressing qualities.

Proposers are asked to present a project as detailed as possible, with (provisional! ) lists of speakers, subjects, and addressing all questions above.

They should also include an estimate of the number of eligible participants for each of three categories (EU or associated states and less than 4 years research experience, less than 10 years, no time limit but a researcher of EU or associated states living outside that zone). For these, no financial estimates should be given.

They should give an estimate of "organisational" expenses, including all expenses of key speakers which are non eligible.

The proposers should be aware of the rules of funding by EU : the travel and living expenses of all eligible researchers can be covered, up to a rather generous maximum determined by the EU.

If a fee is charged to all participants, the EU will reimburse the fees of eligible ones but then substract this amount from the expenses below.

The other expenses, including expenses of key speakers not eligible, will be covered for a proportion equal to the ratio eligible participants / all participants.

The EU will pay a maximum of 80 % in advance, the last 20 % when all reports are in but maybe only a year later.

Thus proposals must be accompanied by a statement of an organisation ( university, conference centre…) that it will cover the complement of organisational expenses, and also advance 20 % of the funding until payment by EU.

To give an idea, for eight schools in the present project, we have a total of 140 participants of category 1, 155 of category 2, 20 of category 3, and their funding amounts to 366 000 euros, the organisational expenses of each events varies between 12000 and 17 000, of which EU covers the prescribed percentage.

Note that by a new rule, EU will not fund series of events in a single specific subject. In case of multiple proposals submitted one theme, the EMS will have to make a choice or determine if a merger between proposals makes sense.

Luc LEMAIRE