Apply for fellowship
Please carefully read and follow the guide for applicants found below. Notice that you must use the required templates for your application. You can find and upload them under "application requirements". Late or incomplete applications will not be evaluated. Submission of the application can only occur using the online application system through the link below. Call closes 1 October 2023.
The eligibility requirements consist of precise and objective criteria. In addition, a complete set of application material submitted through UCPH’s online application system in due time is required to be eligible.
- International mobility: Applicants can have any nationality, but must undertake transnational mobility according to the MSCA rules (must not have resided or carried out their main activity in Denmark for more than 12 months in the three years prior to the call deadline). Also, applicants employed at UCPH for more than three months before the application deadline will be considered ineligible.
- Education and research experience: Applicants must hold a PhD degree followed by up to eight years of experience from for example academia, clinic, industry or biotech. Exceptions to the eight years-experience criteria are made for applicants with prolonged career breaks due to parental leave, illness or mandatory military/civil service (documentation required as part of the application). Therefore, all applicants who have not yet defended their PhD or have more than 8 years after their PhD will NOT be considered eligible.
Application can only happen online via the link on the LEAD homepage. A complete set of application material, including use of the mandatory application templates (Motivation, CV, reference list, eligibility declaration), submitted in due time is required to be eligible:
- Online application form including personal details
- A signed eligibility declaration (documenting mobility and experience since PhD)
- Degree diplomas (Bachelors, Master, PhD)
- List of two-three referees, whereof one should preferably be the PhD supervisor or another senior scientist that the applicant has worked closely with (reference letters will be directly obtained by BRIC)
- Documentation of career breaks, if any
- CV and full list of publications
- Motivation letter (cover letter)
Please carefully follow the guide for applicants
Required templates for your application:
- Declaration of eligibility
- List of referees
- CV and list of publications
- Motivation letter (cover letter)
Applicants who pass the eligibility check and the remote scientific evaluation and are invited for interviews with the selection committee, will be asked to submit a research synopsis before the interviews, as part of the material reviewed by the committee.
Recruitment timeline
(please note that all dates apart from application deadline are approximate):
- Call deadline: October 1st
- Notification of passing the eligibility and invitation to interview phase: November 3rd 2023
- Deadline for research synopsis: November 27th 2023
- Interviews with scientific council: December 6-8th 2023
- Notification of passing to second interview: December 18th 2023
- Second interview with host lab: January 8-12th 2024
- Final decision: January 31st 2024
- Expected start date: April 1st 2024
The selection workflow is starting upon call closure consists of three phases:
PHASE 1: Eligibility screening (coordinator and programme manager):
- Mobility
- Education
- Experience
PHASE 2: Evaluation
- Scientific remote evaluation performed by the Scientific Review Panel (SRP)
- Shortlist of candidates for interviews based on SRP scores by the Programme Coordination Committee (PCC)
- Online interviews and evaluation of candidates performed by the Selection Committee (SC)
- On-site visit with the potential host group leader (s) for the candidates positively evaluated by the SC
PHASE 3: Final selection
- Final ranking based on SC scores, also taking into consideration candidate and host priorities (PCC)
In each phase, the predefined selection criteria and scoring of 1-5 will be used. Only applicants receiving a score above the quality cut-off (≥3) will be considered qualified.
Evaluation criteria
The criteria used for evaluation of the candidates will be divided into three categories, including a number of sub-categories. Each category will be assessed and scored using predefined weighed scores, in order to ensure unbiased and merit-based selection of the researchers.
Category 1: Education and scientific track record (40 % weighed score)
- Outcome of PhD degree and following research;
- Publications with/without PhD supervisor (contribution to and impact of publications in a wider sense; impact on knowledge or research methods, clinical’ practices, commercialisation etc.)
- Fellowships and awards
- Scientific communication (oral and poster)
- Collaborations and network
- Technologies
- Exploitation/commercialization
2. Relevance of PhD degree and/or additional research training to drive the scientific challenge and research questions the applicants wishes to undertake during the fellowship.
Category 2: Research leadership potential (40 % weighed score)
- Early research leadership competences obtained during previous work;
- project management
- collaborations and coordination of shared projects
- grant writing
- teaching and supervision
- technology transfer
- outreach and popular communication
- Ability to reflect and form scientific ideas;
- previous project development
- originality of LEAD research synopsis
- ability to critically approach research
- Scientific communication skills;
- Ability to communicate research hypotheses and results
- Ability to engage in scientific discussions
- Interpersonal skills: personal communication and engagement, sense of situation, respecting diversity
Category 3: Motivation (20 % weighed score)
- The applicant’s general motivation for becoming a research leader
- Specific motivation for applying to this program
- Specific motivation for joining proposed groups at BRIC (complementing profiles, transfer of knowledge, unique angle to research, ‘finding my niche’)
Scoring
Each criteria category will be scored from 1-5 for each step of the selection (shortlisting, evaluation and final evaluation). To go from one step to the next step a quality cut-off score of ≥3 is required.
5: Excellent. The applicant meets all the selection criteria in the category with high quality and any shortcomings are minor.
4: Very good. The applicant meets most of the selection criteria in the category with high quality and a few shortcomings.
3: Good. The applicant meets most of the selection criteria in the category with a good quality, but improvements could be expected.
2: Fair. The applicant meets most of the selection criteria in the category with a fair quality, but there are several shortcomings.
1: Poor. The applicant meets the selection criteria in the category inadequately and there are significant shortcomings.
The LEAD fellows will receive a 36 months contract with UCPH as a postdoctoral researcher, with BRIC specified as the daily workplace. The employment conditions will be equal to those of other researchers employed at BRIC/UCPH. The terms of employment, salary and pension are in accordance with agreements between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State and include:
- Scale regulated salary and pension (plus tax reductions for international researchers in DK)
- Regulated work week of 37 hours/week
- Full social benefits including health care
- Right to salary during holidays (six weeks of holidays per year on top of national holidays)
- Right to salary during own illness and child’s first two sick days
- Right to parental leave (up to 32 weeks paid leave) and two child care days/child/year until age 7
The overall working conditions at UCPH is set out in a ‘Personnel Policy’, presented in a Personnel Policy Handbook and centred around a set of basic principles ensuring an open, collaborative, secure, including and developing work environment with equality for all staff . The LEAD fellows will:
- Have flexible work hours and be encouraged to attain work-life balance
- Participate in university and centre-wide satisfaction and well-being assessments
- Have annual Performance and Development Reviews with nearest leader (host supervisor)
- Be able to run and vote for university elections and BRIC Liaison Committee
- Be hosted in a healthy physical work environment (mandatory training at BRIC in occupational health and safety issues and handling of potential hazardous reagents, governmental-regulated laboratory facilities and work procedures, non-smoking and alcohol policy, controlled indoor climate)
- Be hosted in a healthy psychosocial work environment (freedom of speech, no-tolerance of harassment and bullying, coaching on stress-handling and in case of long-term illness)