Seed Money Research Projects Call 2019
Future Food Utrecht Hub
Deadline Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 5 PM
Who can apply?
Are you an UU-UMCU researcher involved in food related research, who wants initial funding to collaborate with researchers from other faculties? The Future Food Seed money grant could be for you!
With the Seed Money fund, the Future Food Hub platform intends to bring researchers across all seven faculties of our university together, to facilitate new internal and external collaborations, stimulate new research ideas, bring in new partners and create new ways of impact of research. By connecting our knowledge and collaborating with stakeholders in a transdisciplinary setting, Future Food Utrecht aims to provide sustainable and healthy food solutions for the next generations. Our ambition is to strive for diets that are both good for the planet and for all its inhabitants.
Research themes
The fundamental research of the Future Food Utrecht scientists covers a wide spectrum of disciplines needed to understand the mechanisms behind food-related challenges. In pursuit of its vision, mission, and goals, FFU focuses its research on four complementary strategic research themes, that constitute the long-term strategic research scope of FFU.
- Nature Inspired Food Production : New agricultural practices that minimize the negative ecological impact and maximize the benefits of natural processes taking into account biodiversity.
- Immune Resilience :Immune fitness for soil, plants, animals and people is needed to grow healthy, become old healthy and prevent chronic diseases.
- Social & cultural change of food behavior: Through a better understanding of cultural, social and psychological factors when choosing food, new opportunities are discovered to help people in making sustainable and healthy food choices.
- Food Fairness: Encouraging healthy and sustainable food production and choices requires a policy context that makes this possible without possible social inequality that can arise.
Eligibility Criteria
You can apply for Seed Money for research projects under the following conditions:
- The research proposal should have a well-defined focus towards the initiation of research projects that contribute to strengthening the four Future Food Utrecht research themes and goals, with clear deliverables that lead to writing an external research proposal, bringing together innovative new strategic consortia.
- Each proposal must be submitted by at least 2 UU/UMC Utrecht scientists from different faculties.
- Each applicant can only participate in one proposal in this call.
- We encourage collaboration with external parties. Societal external partners can join an application, but funding can never be granted to external personnel.
- The proposal gives a brief impression of the topic of the external research proposal, the interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary character of the research question, the scientific relevance, a description of how the research will contribute to sustainability, the researchers and expertises involved, concrete goals and opportunities, the deliverables and the use of the funds.
- The maximum grant per project is €20.000.
- Projects must be completed within 2020.
- The proposal must be submitted in the attached template (see here below)
Assessment criteria
- The potential contribution to strengthen the FFU’s goals and research themes.
- The potential of successfully acquiring external funding.
- The extent of interdisciplinary collaboration and the added value of the consortium to carry out the proposed research.
- The extent of new scholarly collaboration.
- Track record of the applicants.
- Scientific quality.
Procedure and timeline
- Launch of the call 8 July 2019
- Submit by email to FFU Managing Director Maria Jose Rojo Martinez (M.J.RojoMartinez@uu.nl )
- Deadline is Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 5 PM.
- After the deadline all proposals will be checked on eligibility. Researchers of non-eligible proposals will be informed.
- The jury will discuss all eligible proposals. Members of the jury will not contribute to the decision process of proposals of their own group.
- The jury will advise the FFU Board about the proposals. In case there are more suitable projects than budget allows, the jury will prioritize the projects for the FFU board.
- Publication of the decision will ultimately take place in December 2019.
Justification and Report after the grant
At the end of the seed money grant the applicant must hand in:
- Proof of the submitted proposal for an external call
- A short, written final report about the proposal (for the website)
- A presentation for one of the FFU meetings.
Questions
If you have questions about the call and the criteria, please contact Maria Jose Rojo Martinez. You can find this call on the FFU-website.