Fellowship scheme for researchers at risk

To validate the established procedures, the PA will award fellowships to researchers at risk in two tracks, with around 15 fellowships in each track:

• Track 1: Urgent placements for non-EU researchers at risk (outside the refugee process) who are facing threats in their country of residence or have recently fled their country of residence due to such threats, and have neither refugee nor subsidiary protection status.
• Track 2: Non-EU refugee researchers and follow-up placements for at-risk candidates outside the refugee process – i.e. researchers with recognised refugee or subsidiary protection status; or researchers outside the refugee process holding or applying for temporary permits/visas

The evaluation and selection procedures of researchers will follow a set of criteria for the assessment and validation of researchers’ risk (type, level, authenticity, etc.), background, research and work portfolio (quality and excellence), asylum/refugee status, and any other relevant assessment criteria. The evaluation and selection criteria will be an important part of the proposal developed by the applying consortium and they should be based on the consortium’s prior experience in evaluation and vetting procedures for at risk researchers. Experience of comparable national and international programmes should be considered.

Researchers may come from all domains of research and innovation. Their proposals must be in line with the objectives and principles of scientific excellence, skills and career development, inter-sectoral mobility, equal opportunities and inclusiveness, attractive working conditions, work/life balance, while fostering open science, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Applicant researchers can be either doctoral candidates (enrolled in a doctoral programme leading to the award of a doctoral degree) or postdoctoral researchers (in possession of a doctoral degree).

The beneficiary and third parties hosting researchers at risk

The beneficiary of this Preparatory Action will report to the European Research Executive Agency and will be responsible for the implementation of the fellowship scheme:

• its overall management,
• establishing, testing and validating the procedures and criteria for the evaluation and selection of researchers at risk,
• the implementation of the proposed scheme to match selected researchers with potential hosts, in cases when researchers have not yet identified a potential host organisation.

Eligible third parties that will host researchers are principally academic or non-academic research organisations established in an EU Member State. Other organisations, including those established in non-EU countries can host researchers for short-term secondments.

Eligible activities – The following conditions must be fulfilled:

• projects must publish their open calls widely and adhere to EU standards of transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality;
• all calls for third parties and all calls that are implemented by third parties must be published on the beneficiaries’ websites;
• the calls must remain open for at least two months;
• if submission deadlines are changed, this must be announced immediately and registered applicants must be informed of the change;
• projects must publish the outcome of the calls without delay, including a description of third party projects, the date of the award, duration, and the legal name and country;
• the calls must have a clear European dimension.

Supported researchers must focus exclusively on civil applications and must not:

• aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes.
• intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (except for research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads, which may be financed).
• intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research, or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.