Dave Crowley's presentation from the project Kick-off Meeting in Nottingham on 15 May 2013. Explains the regulations behind the EU COFUND scheme.

1. 15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC Nottingham
EU Funding for
International
Collaborative Research
and Development
From FP1 to CASCADE-FELLOWS

2. The Framework Programmes (FPs)
• Around since mid 1980s
• Biggest Research Programme in the World
• Originally set up to boost European
Competitiveness in Key Technological Areas
where Europe was lagging/falling behind the
USA and Japan (I.T. HDTV etc.) and also to
avoid duplication and replication of research
being carried out in various EU Member
States.
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

3. FP’s and International Researcher
Mobility
• Currently in Final Year of FP7 which will be replaced by
“Horizon 2020” next year and run till 2020 (budget of around
80 billion Euros proposed)
• Researcher Mobility Schemes Piloted in FP4 in the mid 1990’s.
Now known as the “People” Pillar of FP7 and represented by
the “Marie Curie Fellowship Schemes”
• Very Popular and have expanded constantly since then
• Individual and Network types
• Now Global in nature in most cases
• COFUND introduced as a way to “Internationalise” existing
Fellowship Programmes of Funding Authorities around the EU
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

4. COFUND
• The COFUND action supports existing or new regional,
national and international fellowship programmes (to open up
to and provide for transnational mobility).
• COFUND will support fellowship programmes for the most
promising Experienced Researchers, helping them in their
career development. The programmes must run an open,
merit-based competition for the applying researchers, founded
on international peer review. The freedom of the fellows to
choose a research topic and the appropriate host organisation
fitting their individual needs is a key element for the COFUND
action.
• COFUND should NOT be confused with other Marie Curie Multi-
Partner Schemes like Initial Training Networks where several
(full) partners sign a contract with Brussels and are allocated
their own pots of money.
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

5. COFUND
• How does it work?
• Proposals are submitted by organisations operating
a transnational fellowship programme within the
specified deadlines, and are evaluated by external
independent experts against a series of
predetermined criteria. In principle, selected
programmes will be cofunded for a duration of 24
to 60 months.
• CASCADE-FELLOWS will run for 60 months
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

6. COFUND
Programmes that apply for the COFUND action
must comply with the concept of individual
driven mobility, which means that researchers
should be able to choose the research topic,
destination, research group or supervisor of their
fellowship freely. Programmes which
predefine the fellow's research work at a
given location do not conform to this
principle. In any case COFUND will not support
"recruitment schemes" to fill regular research
vacancies.
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

7. COFUND
• The project should be shaped in order to develop and widen
the competences of the researcher significantly, in particular
in terms of multi- or interdisciplinary expertise, intersectoral
(private-public) experience and complementary skills.
• Such training/career development activities may include:
• Primarily, training-through-research under supervision by
means of an individual personalised project;
• Hands-on training activities for developing scientific (new
techniques or instruments, etc.) and complementary skills
(communication techniques, proposal preparation to request
funding, patent applications, project management, task
coordination, technical or scientific staff supervision, etc.);
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

8. COFUND
• Intersectoral (private/public sector) or interdisciplinary
transfer of knowledge;
• Developing capacity to build collaborations, in particular
through participation in conferences;
• Taking active part in the management (including financial
management) of research projects;
• Developing organisational skills through organisation of
training or dissemination events;
• Ethics issues
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

9. COFUND
HOW CAN THE EUROPEAN UNION CONTRIBUTION BE
USED?
The Cofunding can be used to:
•Open up an existing programme for transnational mobility
•Create new transnational programmes
•Increase the number of transnational fellowships awarded by an
existing programme
•Improve the conditions of the fellows or contribute to the
training and career development objective of the COFUND
scheme (e.g. by extending the duration of the fellowships, by
improving the contributions for the fellows' research, by paying
higher monthly rates, improving social security and/or pension
conditions
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

10. CASCADE-FELLOWS
The objectives of CASCADE-FELLOWS are to:
– Recruit and train post-doctoral fellows from Europe and
internationally to establish themselves as future leaders in the
European Research Area
– Add a significant international dimension to the trans-national
mobility of fellows by including host organisations outside the
EU
– Offer an exchange dimension between academia and industry
(including SMEs) by enabling fellows mobilised from academia
to industry to maintain continuity of their academic careers
and keep in touch with academic research environments while
at the same time benefiting from working in an industrial
environment.
– Researchers will be able to choose the research topic,
destination and research group for their fellowship freely.
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

11. CASCADE-FELLOWS
The rest of the morning will explain how these
fundamental, underlying principles of the COFUND
Programme will be applied in practice in CASCADE-
FELLOWS but we must remain true to the preceding
principles in implementing our Project in the course of the
next five years and comply with the ethos of
internationalising and improving the career prospects of
every Post-Doctoral Researcher who participates.
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

12. 15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC Nottingham
EU Team
Jill Harris
EU
Accountant
Sandra
Winfield
COFUND
Coordinator
Bethany
York
Project
Coordinator
Alex
Hammond
Project
Coordinator
Victoria
Hayward
Marie Curie
Coordinator
Jonathan
Causton
Project
Administrator
Lida Kaur
Project
Administrator
Matt Rackley
BDE
European
David
Crowley
BDE
International

13. EU Funding at Nottingham
• FP7 Projects – 260 projects €109m
– 94 Marie Curies €31m
– 132 Collaboration Projects 21 lead by
Nottingham €47m
– 11 ERC €17m
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham

14. THANK YOU
david.j.crowley@nottingham.ac.uk
QUESTIONS ?
15 May 2013 CASCADE-FELLOWS KOM, EMCC, Nottingham