VILNIUS UNIVERSITY

Invitation to apply for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021

Vilnius University

Vilnius University (VU) is one of the oldest higher education institutions in the Eastern and Central Europe (founded in 1579) and the largest university in Lithuania involved in multidisciplinary academic activity. It has 15 academic units (Faculties, Centers and/or other), the oldest academic Library in the Baltics, the Astronomical Observatory, the Botanical Garden, 2 University Hospitals. Research and teaching is carried out by 3051 specialists. During more than four centuries of its existence VU grew into the leading university in Lithuania.

VU retains its leading role in a broad spectrum of fundamental and applied research, education, training and retraining, consultancy, providing research and development services to a wide range of businesses. VU represents Lithuania by shaping high scientific standards, which increasingly contribute to attracting international researchers and becomes a serious competitor to prestigious European universities. In the latest QS World University Rankings 2022 VU was ranked 400th among more than one and a half thousand other higher education institutions.

VU participates in numerous academic, business, social and other networks and associations and is involved in international initiatives and clusters, which are crucial to R&D activities, opening up opportunities for multilateral collaboration, new initiatives and community involvement in and for society.

Being globally famous for the achievements in the field of lasers VU together with the Centre for Physical Sciences and Technology is officially representing Lithuania in the European Consortium for Research Infrastructures for Extreme Light Infrastructure – the world‘s leading consortium of laser research infrastructures. Also, VU Laser Research Center is a part of a network of European laser research infrastructures Laserlab-Europe bringing together 35 organizations in laser-based interdisciplinary research.

VU Life Sciences Center and EMBL has recently established Partnership Institute for Genome Editing Technologies, employing six high-level groups of international researchers whose scientific focus will be on the development and strengthening of gene editing technology.

VU Faculty of Philosophy participates in the activities of a research infrastructure for studying the effects of health, social, economic and environmental policies over the life-course of European citizens and beyond The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).

VU is a member of the Arqus Alliance which brings together the universities of Bergen, Granada, Graz, Leipzig, Lyon, Padova and Vilnius. Among other priorities Arqus aims to enhance actual research collaboration within the Alliance and with European and global partners, looking for ways to share resources, fostering joint doctoral and post-doctoral initiatives, promoting shared opportunities and thus making Arqus an attractive space for talent from around the world.

What is more, VU is a bilateral partner of many universities all around the world and these partnerships pave the way for academic cooperation in various research and study fields.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships Call
22 Jun 2021 – 12 Oct 2021

The goal of MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF) is to enhance the creative and innovative potential of researchers holding a PhD and who wish to acquire new skills through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility. The scheme is open to researchers wishing to reintegrate in Europe, to those who are displaced by conflict, as well as to researchers with high potential who are seeking to restart their careers in research.

Through the implementation of an original and personalised research project, MSCA PF aim to foster excellence through training and mobility and to equip researchers with new skills and competences in order to identify solutions to current and future challenges.

Types of Postdoctoral Fellowships

Additional Funding Opportunity

European Postdoctoral Fellowships (EPF) are open to researchers of any nationality who wish to engage in R&I projects by either coming to Europe from any country in the world or moving within Europe.

Duration: 12-24 months.

Global Postdoctoral Fellowships (GPD) are open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to engage in R&I projects with organisations outside EU Member States (MS) and Horizon Europe (HE) Associated Countries (AC).

ERA Fellowships are open to researchers of any nationality who wish to engage in R&I projects by either coming to Europe from any country in the world or moving within Europe to a Widening Country*. In order to apply for the ERA Fellowships call, applicants need to submit their proposal to the 2021 MSCA PF call. To be eligible to this call the host organisation must be located in an eligible widening country. The application to the MSCA PF call will be automatically resubmitted to this call in case the proposal fails to reach an adequate place in the ranking to be funded.

Duration: 24-36 months (12-24 months outgoing phase in a non-associated Third Country (TC) & 12 months mandatory return phase to a host organisation in Europe).

* Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and all AC with equivalent characteristics in terms of R&I performance and the Outermost Regions (defined in Art. 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU).

Worldwide secondments

Researchers may opt to include a secondment phase, within the overall duration of their fellowship in any country worldwide. The secondment phase can be a single period or be divided into shorter mobility periods.

For EPF, secondments cannot exceed 1/3 of the standard fellowship duration.

For GPF, optional secondments are permitted for up to 1/3 of the outgoing phase.

Placements in the non-academic sector

Both EPF and GPF can provide an additional period of up to 6 months to support researchers seeking a placement at the end of the project to work on R&I projects in an organisation from the non-academic sector established in an EU MS or HE AC.

Eligible Applicants

- All domains of researchand technological development are eligible for funding.

- Applications made jointly by the researcher and a host institution in an EU MS or HE AC (in the research areas covered by the Euratom Programme legal entity must be established in an EU MS or Euratom AC).

- Excellent researchers of any nationality. However, researchers applying for GPF or researchers reintegrating to Europe, must be nationals or long term residents of EU MS or HE AC.

- Supported fellows must be in possession of PhD at the call deadline (applicants who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but who have not yet formally been awarded the doctoral degree will also be considered eligible to apply).

- Up to 8 years full-time equivalent experience in research from the date of award of the doctoral degree at the call deadline (exceptions: career breaks, work outside research, research outside Europe for reintegrating researchers).

- Mobility rule: fellows must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the beneficiary (for EPF), or the host organisation for the outgoing phase (for GPF) for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline.

- Researchers reintegrating from a TC must either be based in a TC at the call deadline, or have moved directly from a TC to an EU MS or HE AC within the last 12 months before the call deadline.

- Fellows in the research areas covered by the Euratom Programme must be nationals or long-term residents of an EU MS or Euratom AC.

Applicable unit contributions

* A country correction coefficient applies to the living allowance in order to ensure equal treatment and purchasing power parity for all researchers (72,8% for Lithuania). For European Postdoctoral Fellowships, this coefficient is the one applicable to the country of the beneficiary. For the Global Postdoctoral Fellowships two different country correction coefficients apply – for the outgoing phase and for the return phase.

** The pre-defined categories are as follows: EUR 3 000, EUR 4 500, EUR 6 000, EUR 9 500, EUR 13 000, EUR 18 500, EUR 27 500, EUR 35 500, EUR 47 500 and EUR 60 000.

The beneficiary must recruit the postdoctoral researcher under an employment contract or equivalent direct contract with full social security coverage.

The above rates apply to postdoctoral researchers devoting themselves to their project on a full-time basis. Researchers may, in agreement with the supervisor and beneficiary and with prior approval by the granting authority, implement their project on a part-time basis.