4TU.Energy & 4TU.NIRICT joint Calls for Funding (NEW in 2024)

(version date: 05-02-2024; submission deadline: 15-04-2024)

4TU.NIRICT
The goal of 4TU.NIRICT is to strengthen and support collaboration among researchers and practitioners of the 4TU institutes working in the ICT domain. ICT is a very broad field in which 4TU.NIRICT focuses on the interface between Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. 
NIRICT promotes cross-disciplinary collaboration beyond institutional boundaries, as well as the diversity and inclusion of the Dutch ICT research community. In this way it intends to increase the impact of ICT research in The Netherlands.  

4TU.Energy
4TU.Energy aims to connect and build upon the individual strengths of the 4TUs and facilitate collaboration among researchers in the field of Energy to accelerate the transition toward a carbon-neutral future. Here is the environment where researchers in Energy are connected and are offered opportunities to boost collaborations.

One of the opportunities is the funding opportunity, with the goal to lower the threshold on community building and to initiate more collaborations within 4TU.Energy.

Joint call
There is a clear overlap of NIRICT research interest with 4TU.Energy. One of the current focus areas of NIRICT is Energy. NIRICT approaches this topic from two angles: ICT as an enabler for energy transition and ICT as a contributor to a large energy footprint. Bringing together the 4TU.Energy and 4TU.NIRICT community can help both communities understand each other’s perspectives better and enable them to explore potential collaboration options to solve the energy transition challenges together. That’s why 4TU.NIRICT & 4TU.Energy join forces and facilitate, stimulate and support collaboration between researchers of the 4TU.NIRICT and 4TU.Energy community, increasing interdisciplinary collaborations. 
This call therefore explicitly aims to support all activities that help in strengthening the collaboration between these communities (e.g., joint workshops, joint labs, international guest lecturers, promotional events for prospective students working in the field) and enable them to start-up new research ventures by using this funding.

Application guidelines 
In order to apply for funding, submit a proposal in the following format describing the five items mentioned below. The page limit is two A4 with font size Calibri 11. 

1.Who are the applicants? 
State i) name, ii) position, and iii) affiliation (section/department & university) of the applicants. For the contact person, also add email and phone number.  

Proposals should include scientific staff members from at least three different affiliated universities*. Proposals with applicants outside of affiliated universities are welcome, but only applicants from TU/e, UT, TU Delft and WUR (4TU universities) can submit the claims.

The proposal must have a good balance between ICT (Computer Science & Electrical Engineering) and Energy research, from both content perspective and outcome perspective. 

*When this call refers to affiliated universities, the following universities are included; UT, TU/e, WUR, TU Delft and RUG.

2. What will the funding be used for? 
The funding can be used for actual and specific costs/invoices for a certain activity. Briefly describe the activity or other purpose of the funding. There are no restrictions on what the funding is used for as long as it supports the goal of the funding scheme (see "Why" below). Examples of what can be applied for are support for bringing together communities of researchers around a common research theme (e.g., through organization of workshops and other joint activities), research collaboration (e.g., travel grants, joint labs), dissemination of joint research, creation of joint proof-of-concepts/demonstrators, visitors, executing joint experiments, hackathons to attract talented students to pursue a PhD in our field, etc.

3. How much funding is requested? 
For this call the maximum amount of funding that can be requested per proposal is 25k. The requested funding is expected to be in balance with expected benefits for the 4TU.NIRICT and 4TU.Energy community. 
Please include in your proposal a contextual breakdown of costs to motivate the requested amount. 

4. Why is it supporting the goal of the funding scheme? 
This is the most important part of your proposal. Describe how both communities will be strengthened through the proposed activity and what the added value is of conducting this in 4TU context. If the target audience is more than the applicants (e.g., in case of organization of a workshop), describe what the intended audience is. 

5. When will the activity be carried out or the funding be used? 
The more specific you can be, the better. The funding should be spent before the end of 2025. 

Proposals will be evaluated based on 1) the extent to which the proposed activity supports the goals of the funding scheme ("Why"), 2) specificity of the proposal regarding "What" and "When", and 3) appropriateness of the amount of funding requested ("How much"). 

The above 5 items in the proposal will be the basis of the score criteria during the evaluation procedure. Specifically, the criteria consist of: Contribution to community building between ICT and Energy (weight 40%), Proposal quality (weight 20%), Commitment of time and money (weight 20%), and, Cross affiliated University* (weight 20%).

Procedure 

·       Applications can be submitted until April 15, 2024.

·       Applications will be evaluated by the 4TU.NIRICT and 4TU.Energy management team, based on scoring criteria.

·       Applicants will be notified of the decision on acceptance at the latest June 14, 2024.

Please submit the proposal following the above format as a pdf file by e-mail to m.mommers@tue.nl (Margje Mommers, 4TU.NIRICT Coordinator) and s.lou@tue.nl (Sha Lou, 4TU.Energy Coordinator)

If funding is awarded, we request a publicly available final report on the activities carried out in the scope of the project or sources (e.g., in the form of a website featuring a written and/or visual report, a short movie, etc.) and you should be willing to give a short presentation or present a poster during a 4TU.NIRICT/4TU.Energy public event. If the nature of the type of measure or activity does not warrant such publicity, e.g., for privacy reasons, please indicate so already in the proposal.  

*When this call refers to affiliated universities, the following universities are included; UT, TU/e, WUR, TU Delft and RUG.

Questions?

Please contact  m.mommers@tue.nl (Margje Mommers, 4TU.NIRICT Coordinator) and s.lou@tue.nl (Sha Lou, 4TU.Energy Coordinator)