Research project Kom op tegen Kanker

• 15 January 2024: call opens
• March 2024: internal deadlines (contact the responsible department of the host institution in a timely manner for the transfer of the application between promoter-spokesperson and host institution)
• 2 April 2024 at 5 pm: call closes (last application date via FWO e-portal by main host institution)
• 9-20 September 2024: rebuttal phase (in writing)
• 20 September 2024 at 23h59: end of rebuttal phase (last application date via FWO e-portal by promoter-spokesperson)
• November 2024: (online) jury meeting
• 19 December 2024: announcement of results
• 1 January 2025: start of project
• January 2025: receiving feedback

• Duration: 2 years
• Staff and consumables: at least €50,000 per year for the entire project (including all partners) and at most €145,000 per year per participating institution, with the exception of the non-Flemish partners, who may receive up to 10% of the total budget for the project.
• Equipment: maximum €150,000 per project.
• Theme: “Research aimed at improving the diagnosis and the first steps in the treatment of cancer, e.g. optimizing medical imaging, biopsies etc.”
• NOTE: the humanitarian research projects such as these in the scope of Kom op tegen Kanker, differ in some substantial aspects from the fundamental research projects of FWO:
  • These projects will NOT distinguish between a junior or a senior project type;
  • These projects will NOT be taken into account for calculating the maximum of 2 projects for which one can be (co)-supervisor at a given time.
  • A specific panel of scientific experts composed by FWO will evaluate your application; it is not necessary to select a panel yourself from the regular FWO expert panels.
  • Next to the online application in the e-portal a specific form (Word-template) has to be submitted which will be evaluated by Kom op tegen Kanker's patients committee. This committee will participate in decision making.
  • Success rate 2023: 20%

• As a team of researchers you need funding for consumables, equipment and/or personnel.
• Your research will be carried out at an eligible Flemish main host institution, possibly in collaboration with other Flemish and/or federal research institutions (Article 7); a non-Flemish research institution may participate for at most 10 percent of the budget.
• Your research will be carried out under the supervision of a supervisor-spokesperson, possibly in collaboration with other (co-)supervisors (Article 10 - 12).
• Emeriti with 10% paid appointment can only act as co-supervisor.
• All material acquired with a grant for consumables/equipment of the FWO shall become the property of the university. If you want to use core facilities during the execution of your project, do make sure that the fees for that use are budgeted correctly in the consumables expenditure category.
• The host institution is the employer of staff remunerated on research projects.
• Supervisors and co-supervisors are not allowed any remuneration or accumulation with a remuneration on a research project.
• The real cost is used in the application when the name(s) of the researcher(s) is (are) already known. When the name(s) of the researcher(s) is (are) not yet known, indicative amounts may be used.
• You agree with the Research Integrity Clause

• You submit your proposal online.
• For the research projects in the context of Kom op tegen Kanker, patients (or patient representatives) will participate in the evaluation of the applications. For this stage of the evaluation applicants are required to explain the (envisaged) relevance and short-term impact of their project in a way that is understandable to non-experts. An extra form will be added to the application (see below, ‘Downloads’); this form will be read by the patients committee of Kom op tegen Kanker to evaluate the submitted projects. This patients committee will only address the afore mentioned aspects of the project, i.e. the relevance and short-term impact for patients.
• For the collaboration between institutions, consent is given in one of three ways:
  • Partners who can also be main host institution: their consent is sent directly to FWO.
  • Flemish partners who cannot be main host institution the supervisor-spokesperson collects the signed forms of consent from all these partners. With this declaration those institutions commit themselves to act as host institutions for the project and more specifically with respect to the research work that will be performed by their researchers in the project. The declarations from these institutions have to be uploaded as an attachment to the application form. Download the template for this declaration.
  • Non-Flemish partners: a collaboration agreement has to be made at latest 9 months after the start of the project and is stored by the Flemish main host institution.
• Each (co-)supervisor(-spokesperson) has to upload a CV. The template provided in the application form must be used.
• Your application is submitted to a number of external referees for evaluation.
• Rebuttal: You will be given the opportunity to react on the comments of the external referees, internal evaluators (members FWO expert panels) and patient committee between 9 and 20 September 2024. The supervisor-spokesperson of the application receives at the beginning of the rebuttal phase an invitation on the (primary) e-mail address as filled out in the FWO e-portal – this is the e-mail address by which the application is submitted to the supervisor-spokesperson’s main host institution. An invitation will be sent to this email address. Please also check your spam folder to make sure you do not miss this important message.
  
  If you have not received a message from FWO by 9 September, the FWO should be informed as soon as possible.
  
  Team members involved in an application are strongly advised to make arrangements regarding the composition and submission of the rebuttal in case the promoter-spokesperson is not able to complete this task because of force-majeure. In any case, ‘force-majeure’ has to be proven by medical attestation or other relevant official documents.
• A dedicated jury of scientific experts and the patient committee KOTK evaluates your application.
• The jury reports to the board of trustees.
• The board of trustees takes the final decision.
• Afterwards you will receive feedback on your application.

Contact med@fwo.be for requesting additional info and for specific questions

For technical (IT) problems regarding e-portal and application modules send an email to the IT helpdesk: FWOhelpdesk@fwo.be

The application form for this funding programme has been amended in 2022 to pay more attention to various researcher profiles and research results.

In the form the subsections relating to peer reviewed articles have been merged into a single section (i.e. without distinguishing between Web of Science, VABB-SHW and the like), the section ‘other output and impact’ in the CV template has been placed in a broader context, a ‘research statement’ has been introduced in which the ‘short CV’ and the ‘career path’ overlap, enabling the researcher to insert a narrative, and the option has been added to present and clarify the five most relevant publications and/or achievements over the last five years, and to include the research funding obtained over the last five years.

The evaluation procedure has also been amended accordingly: in the score grids, the score descriptors have been supplemented with the new elements in the application form.  

The purpose of these amendments is to give researchers the opportunity to demonstrate a range of scientifically relevant activities, skills, experiences and achievements. The FWO is thus following an international trend away from a one-sided focus on ‘classical’ output criteria (such as publications, bibliometrics, patents and the like) towards a broader view of what science can be and accomplish, with respect for the specificity of each discipline. The new application forms intend to help the researcher demonstrate this versatility.  

The application form now also features two questions relating to ‘responsible research and innovation’: one about the extent to which ‘gender/sex and diversity’ has been taken into account in the research approach and another about the involvement of social stakeholders in the research. Applicants can justify their answers to both questions or, where appropriate, indicate why these aspects are not relevant to their application. The questions are intended to raise awareness about these aspects in terms of what is understood as responsible research and innovation.