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SCIENCE-DRIVEN E-INFRASTRUCTURES INNOVATION (“SEI”)

Guidelines for Proponents from the State of São Paulo, Brazil

Summary: FAPESP (São Paulo, Brazil) and four other funding agencies worldwide under the Belmont Forum Initiative, launch a call for joint research projects in “Science-Driven E-Infrastructures Innovation”.
Closing date for submission of Proposals:	July 23th, 2018
FAPESP scheme:	Regular Research Awards with budget exceptionalities (item 4.4)
Maximum duration of the project:	Up to 48 months
Eligibility:	Proponents from the State of São Paulo must be established researchers with a proven track record of participating in international interdisciplinary projects in e-Infrastructure or in the scientific area of the envisaged proposal (according to Item 4.1); a preliminary eligibility consultation is obligatory.
Submission of proposals:	At the closing date, no documents whatsoever should be sent to FAPESP – the project coordinator must send the collaborative proposal to the Call Secretariat. Eligible researchers in São Paulo will be timely advised on how to submit due documents through the SAGe System.
FAPESP: Alexandre Roccatto, e-mail: chamada-bf-sei@fapesp.br Call Secretariat (Theme Programme office): sei-tpo@agencerecherche.fr

RESEARCHERS MUST FOLLOW THE COMPLETE CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR DETAILS REGARDING APPLICATION, FUNDING, SELECTION CRITERIA, PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION at: https://bfgo.org/calls/index.jsp#sei2018

 

NOTE: Landslides and floods, triggered by torrential rain, recently hit dramatically Japan. 
Researchers are actively mobilized in the national emergency response.
Due to this case of force majeure, the SEI call deadline is extended to Monday 23th July at 5 p.m. (CEST).

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1 Introduction

This SEI call targets Science-driven initiatives that are well-positioned to bring together environmental, social and economic scientists with data scientists, computational scientists, and e-infrastructure and cyber-infrastructure developers and providers to solve one or more of the methodological, technological and/or procedural challenges currently facing inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental change research that involves working with large, diverse and multi-source transnational data.

Proposals must comply with and implement the Belmont Forum open data policies, provide a data management plan, and demonstrate how it supports and contributes to the open science.

2 Scientific Research Topics

As examples, research topics of interest may include, but are not limited to:

- Enable High-end Data assimilation and Broaden Data Model Intercomparison.

- Accelerate Data Access and Analysis for Disaster Monitoring and Mitigation.

- Enable Science Reproducibility and Trust.

- Transdisciplinary Multi-source Data Management.

- Lower Barriers to Open Science Practices.

The SEI call emphasizes ‘going the last mile’ with data: not only uncovering evidence that support scholarly observations, but also distilling and collating the evidence into forms that can be used routinely in research across disciplines so that these data can ultimately serve to increase the wisdom behind policy and action in a transdisciplinary context.

3 Grant Modality

Proposals should follow the overall conditions of Regular Research Awards (“Auxílio à Pesquisa Regular” - www.fapesp.br/apr), observing the exceptionalities described at item 4.4 below.

4 Guidelines to Proponents

4.1 Eligibility check

a. Proponents from the State of São Paulo must be established researchers with a proven track record of participating in international interdisciplinary projects in e-Infrastructure or in the scientific area of the envisaged proposal.

b. It is obligatory that interested researchers from the state of São Paulo consult FAPESP regarding their eligibility prior to the proposal preparation. This procedure should avoid unnecessary efforts of researchers that ultimately would not be able to participate at the collaborative project.

c. Eligibility consultations must be sent only to the email address chamada-bf-sei@fapesp.br containing the information below before June 25th (please identify the message with the subject “BF-SEI Eligibility Check”). Results are expected to be given up to 20 days after the message is received. Review requests of unsuccessful results may be submitted only once, before July 2nd.

c.1. Summary CV of the applicant from the state of São Paulo (in English, according to the template available at www.fapesp.br/en/6351);

c.2. Title and summary of the proposal;

c.3. The name of the Main Applicant of the project consortium and of all co-Applicants from other countries, and respective institutions;

c.4. Estimated budget request to FAPESP, including all applicable overheads and eventual Post-Doctoral and Technical Training fellowships costs (a template budget spreadsheet can be used to obtain the estimated budget, available at www.fapesp.br/docs/formularios/forms/orcamentos_03-2018.xlsx);

c.5. Duration of the project and an estimation of the weekly hours to be devoted to the project by the applicant from São Paulo, considering an indicative maximum of 40 hrs/week dedicated to FAPESP’s ongoing research grants.

4.2 How to submit proposals

a. No submissions or documents are to be sent directly to FAPESP at closing the date for proposals submission. Only the Leading Principal Investigator of each consortium will submit the joint proposal according to the guidelines at www.belmontforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SEI-2017-Call_Text_Final.pdf.

b. After the submission phase of the Proposal, the Principal Investigator from the state of São Paulo participating in a validated project consortium will be individually contacted by FAPESP for further instructions on how to submit the due complete documentation through a specific path at the SAGe online platform.

4.3 Overall conditions of the multinational call for proposals

a. The budget earmarked by FAPESP for this call will be equivalent of up to € 810.000 (eight hundred and ten thousand euros);

b. This call will support collaborative research projects of multinational research teams for 4 years. Project are expected to start in January 2019 or by March 1, 2019 at the latest;

c. Funding should support proposals that combine significant contributions by national research teams from at least three of the participating countries;

d. It is expected that applications to this call will be through trans-national research consortia as defined in the Belmont Forum call and FAPESP will fund the partner from the State of São Paulo, Brazil, of any successful collaborative proposal;

e. A proponent researcher to FAPESP may only be enrolled in one project consortium to be submitted to the call, either as a Leading Principal Investigator or as a co-applicant;

f. FAPESP has the ultimate responsibility for decisions regarding funding recommendations for the selected proposals, which will confirm any budgetary constraints on submitted projects prior to a final decision on an award being made by the review process as described by the main Call for Proposals text at www.belmontforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SEI-2017-Call_Text_Final.pdf.

4.4 Exceptionalities to the norms and regulations of the Regular Research Award

a. Exceptionally for this call, a Regular Research Award may have a duration of up to 48 months.

b. The maximum allowable budget, except for fellowships, is up to R$ 100.000,00 per year, including all applicable overheads (www.fapesp.br/rt). 

c. Exceptionally for this call, one Post-doctoral fellowship can be requested as budget items only if the proponent, who will be the fellowships supervisor, meets the expected criteria outlined in www.fapesp.br/270#3.6.

c.1. Post-doctoral fellowships will be implementedaccording to regulations given in www.fapesp.br/dc/in14.

d. Technical Training fellowships of any levels are available for FAPESP funding, up to an aggregated total of R$ 350.000,00 (www.fapesp.br/bolsas/tt).

e. Other allowable expenses to be requested to FAPESP are limited to the following items, and must related to support for personnel costs, basic infrastructure and mobility expenses:

e.1. Consumables as appropriate for the project activities;

e.2. Field trips and data collection;

e.3. Participation on the regular consortium meetings (kick-off, annual steering and final workshops) and exchange of researchers within the consortium;

e.4. Short to medium term visits (3-6 months) of the FAPESP funded post-docs to consortium institutions abroad;

e.5. Personal computers and laptops limited to the PI and the fellowship holders to be funded;

e.5.i. Exceptionally for this call, other equipment Items such as laboratory equipment, computer servers, etc. are not eligible for FAPESP funding.

e.6. Third-party services, including software licenses, according to the usual rules from FAPESP.

5 Intellectual Property

In the cases of successful collaborative proposals, a consortium agreement shall be developed amongst all partner researchers´ host institutions, including the Institution from the state São Paulo. This document establishes how Intellectual Property rights, confidentiality and publications will be jointly treated, in observance of the policies of each involved funding agencies and host institutions. This “Letter of Agreement” is mandatory and a signed copy should be sent to FAPESP before the grant contract is signed by the awardee.

6 Timeline

Launch of the call at the Belmont Forum	16 April 2018
Closing date for eligibility consultation to FAPESP	25 June 2018
Closing date for submission of proposals to the BF	23 July 2018
Communication of results	from December 2018
Start of successful projects	January - March 2019
Kick-off meeting	1 April 2019
First steering workshop	December 2019
Second steering workshop	December 2020
Third steering workshop	December 2021
Final workshop	December 2022

7 Further information

a. FAPESP's National Contact Point:

For interested researchers from the State of São Paulo: Alexandre Roccatto, Science Manager at the Scientific Directorate - FAPESP: chamada-bf-sei@fapesp.br

b. Call Secretariat

For general information on the call, please contact the SEI call Theme Programme Office (TPO): sei-tpo@agencerecherche.fr

 

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