IPOD · Academie universitaire Louvain Incoming Post-Doc Fellowshpis

From 2006 on, the French-speaking Community of Belgium has organized its nine universities in three Academies. In this new legal context, UCL is part of the ‘Academie Universitaire Louvain’ (AUL) which also comprises the Facultés universitaires catholiques de Mons (FUCAM), the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix Namur (FUNDP), and the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis (FUSL). With respect to the present application, UCL acts as the operator on behalf of the four partner universities of the AUL.Building upon the existing Mobility Fellowships programme of the UCL called « Bourses post-doctorales à l'accueil de post-doctorants étrangers » as well as similar schemes existing in partners Universities, the four institutions decided to apply for co-funding by the European Commission in order to improve the scheme. This joint initiative should be conducive to a stronger visibility of our research programmes to the research community at large and to a higher level of attractiveness of our four institutions for talented researchers from outside Belgium. Last but not least, this should allow the four universities to be able to offer a higher number of post-doctoral positions and thus a higher success rate for these positions. Specifically, the budget will be increased from 600.000 to 900.000 eur/year. With a co-funding of the European Commission, we would reach an annual budget of 1.5 million euro.The newly called “AUL IPoD fellowships” scheme will be managed by the Research Administration of the UCL which will also provide logistical and administrative support for research missions and activities of benefit to the university community.Concretely, the scheme is open to experienced researchers from all nationalities and is based on a bottom-up approach. The duration may vary from 12 to 24 month and the potential applicant has the choice between 154 Research entities spread over 5 locations and 4 Universities.