T
he University of Cyprus, invites Postdoctoral Researchers to express their interest for fifty (50) full-time Postdoctoral Research positions under the research programme titled “ONISILOS - Cofunding International, Interdisciplinary and Intersectoral research excellence at the University of Cyprus”. The programme is co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme 2014-2020 and more specifically under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (Grant Agreement No 10103440) and the University of Cyprus.
ONISILOS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME
ONISILOS is a 60-month fellowship programme with a duration from 01/01/22-31/12/26. ONISILOS will fund fifty (50) 24-month fellowships for Experienced Researchers (ERs). Two rounds of calls for proposals will be announced according to the table below
1st call
Expression of Interest deadline: 15/05/2022
Application Deadline: 05/09/2022
Starting dates of the fellowships: Between 01/01/23-30/06/23
Number of fellowships: 30
2nd call
Expression of Interest deadline: 15/10/2023
Application Deadline: 30/01/2024
Starting dates of the fellowships: Between 01/06/24-30/11/24
Number of fellowships: 20
Fellows will be selected following an open, transparent, merit-based, impartial and equitable selection procedure, based on international peer review. The selection committee will bring together diverse expertise, have an adequate gender balance and include members from other countries with relevant experience to assess the candidates and evaluate the content of the research proposals.
Three external experts for each proposal will be selected based on their academic background, research excellence and relevance to the proposed field. The selection of the experts will be based on their expertise as evidenced by the quality of research output, geographic and gender balance, reviewing experience, experts based in the non-academic sector, involvement in policy etc. The UCY database of experts will be used, alongside international databases of scholars such as Scopus, Google Scholar etc. All experts will declare beforehand any known conflicts of interest and will inform the responsible staff member if they detect a conflict of interest during the evaluation.
The proposals received by ERs will be evaluated against award criteria applying weighting factors. All the separate elements of each criterion will be considered by the evaluators in their assessment and aggregate evaluation scores will be awarded for each of the three criteria. The table below explains the three categories of evaluation criteria and details on the components of each one.
The ONISILOS programme will give the flexibility to ERs to select from a wide range of scientific topics and promote the intersectoral character of the project. In order to support applicants through the entire selection and evaluation phase, the ONISILOS portal will offer guidance and clear feedback. The platform provides a list of the research areas as well as the corresponding UCY academics that act as supervisors for helping the ERs to make their choice. The platform allows the fellows to choose any scientific area, independently of their PhD field.
Fellowship proposals should involve a secondment organisation, preferably from the nonacademic sector when it is relevant for the selected field of interest, in which the fellow will be seconded for a period from 1 to 3 months. UCY will provide an indicative but not exhaustive list of options that could be offered as secondments and training opportunities to the ERs. The goal is to expose fellows to complementary research and training environments, by having the opportunity to:
- Participate in well-established technical and transferable-skills training
- Participate remotely in courses and tutorials;
- Benefit from secondments in non-academic sector, and from the relevant know-how;
- Participate in targeted short visits
- Attend training events organised by the involved organisations including seminar and tutorial sessions, offering an opportunity to interact with other fellows and senior researchers
- Participate in writing joint publications and make joint presentations on various interdisciplinary topics
- Participate in trainings to develop their own Data Management Plan.
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
1. The programme is designed for Experienced Researchers (ERs) of any nationality. Researchers must hold a PhD degree of a recognized higher education institution before the deadline of the relevant ONISILOS call for proposals. Researchers 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 provided that they can document their successful defence of the thesis.
2. ERs must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Cyprus for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the co-funded programme's call deadline(s) or the date of recruitment. Exceptions and relaxation of these terms could be applied on cases like career breaks, work outside research, research outside Europe for reintegrating researchers.
EMPLOYMENT TERMS
Fellows will be recruited under an employment contract of two (2) years. Employer and employee contributions will be deducted from the amounts below, which do not include a 13 th salary bonus.
The monthly salary includes the following allowances
- €3.540 Living allowance per month
- €300 Mobility allowance per month
- €200 Family allowance per month (if applicable)
Fellows, during the application phase, will have the opportunity to request an extra budget for research purposes like conference participation, seminar registrations, consumables etc.
Employment conditions will be aligned with the “Charter & Code for Researchers” regulations.
Following their appointment at the University of Cyprus, fellows must be based in Cyprus and situated physically at the University of Cyprus buildings in order to participate in the academic life of UCY and to organise academic activities such as workshops, public talks and other activities that will contribute to the intellectual life of the university.
