Details

Cancer research

Cancer is a complex form of disease with serious implications not only for the affected individuals, but also for societies and European health systems. However, cancer remains one of the main challenges of health and bio-medical sciences. Importantly, despite great research effort, various forms of cancers are increasing in the absolute numbers of cancer cases, morbidity and deaths. In fact, cancer is caused by a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors, most of which, particularly from an interdisciplinary perspective, have not yet been identified or analyzed. Therefore, the vision of the INDICAR’s Fellowship Programme is to promote new research approaches by using an interdisciplinary perspective in the field of cancer research.

Who were we looking for?

Interdisciplinarity is the basis of the INDICAR Fellowship Programme. As such we welcomed applications from highly motivated, critically thinking and risk taking postdoctoral researchers, who are interested in crossing boundaries between different fields of research, addressing new and emerging fields of research, or, introducing unconventional, innovative approaches and scientific inventions.

We welcomed applications from researchers from a wide range of backgrounds including, biology, biochemistry, bioinformatics, chemistry, nursing science, molecular genetics/ genomics, nutritional sciences, pharmaceutical sciences and physics. Applications from other disciplines were also considered, provided that they focus on research contributing to the fight against cancer.

Who was eligible?

Postdoctoral researchers who comply with the ‘mobility rule’ of the FP7 Marie Curie Actions are eligible to apply to the INDICAR Programme, namely, at the time of recruitment by the host organisation (i.e. University of Vienna), researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies etc.) in the country of the host organisation (i.e. Austria) for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the reference date (i.e. Deadline for the submission of the application). Compulsory national service and/or short stays such as holidays are not taken into account. Austrian nationals were eligible if they complied with the above Marie Curie Actions mobility rule. Proposals from applicants who did not meet this rule were not evaluated. In addition, applicants were only allowed to make one application per call.

Which Research Departments

A list of participating Departments is available at this link. Potential applicants needed to obtain a supporting letter signed from the Head or Vice Head of the respective Department.

How to apply

All important information about the detailed application procedure, including selection and evaluation criteria are specified in the Guide for Applicants.

The fellowship application procedure

A proposal consisted of administrative forms (Part A), a research proposal (Part B) and supporting documentation. Submission was accepted only via the web-based INDICAR application system.

 

Part A:

  • A.1 academic CV including publication list
  • A.2 support letter from the hosting department (signed from the head or vice head of the respective department)
  • A.3 a list of at least three referee recommendations for reviewing the research proposal (optional: referees who should be excluded from the reviewing process for specific reasons)

 Part B:

  • B.1 Scientific proposal which includes the ethical issue table; it is mandatory to use the provided Word-template which is available at the INDICAR webpage; proposal formats and page numbers are strictly limited.

 Supporting documents:

  • copy of the PhD/Doctorate certificate (in English or German)
  • two letters of references