EOS Research project

The EOS programme wants to promote joint research between researchers in the Flemish and French-speaking community by funding joint fundamental research projects with a duration of four years in any scientific discipline.

• Project duration: 4 years.
• EOS consortium: consists out of research groups from both the Flemish and French-speaking community, with the possibility to add additional research groups from federal and/or foreign research institutions.
• Total yearly budget per EOS consortium: max. € 1,000,000.
• Eligible costs: staff, consumables, and equipment. Overhead costs are not eligible and should not be requested in the EOS application. Overhead of 6% on the granted budget will be paid directly to the host institution, independent of the type of institution (TYPE I as well as II and III). If required, for TYPE IV institutions the overhead can be requested in the EOS application and will be paid through the TYPE I institution of the spokesperson-coordinator.

• As a consortium you need budget for consumables, equipment and staff.
• Your research will be carried out at for this programme eligible host institution.
• Each EOS consortium has one spokesperson-coordinator and each research group part of the consortium has a principal investigator, possibly in collaboration with one or more co-supervisors.
• Each research group can only be part of one EOS consortium per application round. In practice this means that for this application round 2021, each researcher can only take up the role of principal investigator (PI) or co-supervisor once. If you decide to be PI of a research group in a certain EOS consortium, you can no longer act as a PI or co-supervisor in another EOS consortium. The same applies when you act as a co-supervisor of a research group in a certain EOS consortium. As a consequence, your name as a PI or co-supervisor can appear only once in the entire EOS application round 2021.
• All material acquired with a grant for consumables/equipment of the FWO shall become the property of the host institution.
• The host institution is the employer of staff remunerated on EOS research projects.
• Principal investigators and co-supervisors are not allowed any remuneration or accumulation with a remuneration on an EOS research project.
• You agree with the Research Integrity Clause.

• Pre-proposal: the spokesperson-coordinator submits the pre-proposal in English before the deadline using the online EOS platform. All researchers involved in the EOS consortium need to confirm their participation and complete their personal data in the online EOS platform.
• Experts from one of the three EOS sub-panels (Life Sciences, Exact Sciences or Social Sciences and Humanities) will make a first solid selection of EOS research consortia that will be allowed to write down and submit a full proposal. The spokesperson-coordinator is responsible for selecting the EOS sub-panel in which the proposal fits best. For a description of each EOS sub-panel, see this overview.
• Full proposal: the spokesperson-coordinator submits the full proposal in English before the deadline using the online EOS platform.
• In a first step, all full proposals will be subject to an evaluation by in principle 4 remote on-topic experts (international peer review), invited by the FWO/F.R.S.-FNRS.
• During a rebuttal phase, the spokesperson-coordinators can have a closer look into and comment on these anonymized external peer review reports.
• Final EOS panel: the international external peer review reports and the rebuttal will be provided to the final EOS panel for evaluation and a final ranking, based on excellence.
• Ratification: the boards of trustees of the FWO and F.R.S-FNRS ratify the ranking of the final EOS panel.
• Feedback procedure: each spokesperson-coordinator receives feedback.