0

Call for proposals

Idea Generator
Dutch National Research Agenda
2019 first round

The Hague/Utrecht, March 2019

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
1

Contents

1. Introduction 2
1.1. Background 2
1.2. Available budget 2
1.3. Validity of the call for proposals 2
2. Aim 3
3. Guidelines for applicants 4
3.1. Who can apply 4
3.2. What can be applied for 4
3.3. When can applications be submitted 4
3.4. Preparing an application 5
3.5. Conditions on granting 5
3.6. Submitting an application 5
4. Assessment procedure 7
4.1. Procedure 7
4.2. Criteria 8
5. Contact details and other information 9
5.1. Contact 9
2

1. Introduction

1.1. Background

The Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA) describes broad, societal challenges
which require a national approach whereby the Dutch (and global) knowledge
economy as well as society at large can benefit from research performed in The
Netherlands. The NWA was created by an innovative process with input from citizens
and scientists: every Dutch resident was given the opportunity to submit questions
online. The national knowledge community, under the guidance of the Knowledge
Coalition, compiled the resulting questions into 140 scientific challenges, which have
been translated into 25 pathways, i.e. routes.

The NWA programme above all aims to build bridges: between different scientific
fields, between different forms of research (fundamental, applied, practice-oriented)
and between diverse national and international knowledge agendas.
Multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity in the broadest sense, an approach spanning
the entire knowledge chain and cooperation with societal partners including
Ministries, corporates, start-ups and NGOs are therefore crucial features of the
consortia involved in NWA projects and programmes.

The overarching ambition of the NWA programme is to make a positive, structural

contribution to the global knowledge society of tomorrow, in which new knowledge
flows easily from researcher to user and new questions arising from practice and
society lead quickly and naturally to new research. This can only be achieved by
building bridges today in order to address the scientific and societal challenges
together, both locally and globally.

NWO is executing the NWA programme on behalf of the Ministry of Education,

Culture and Science. This call for proposals, the NWA Idea Generator, is one part of
the NWA programme. From 2019 onwards, new funding rounds will take place each
year. In 2019 two funding rounds will take place with deadlines in May and in fall
2019.

1.2. Available budget

The available budget for the Idea Generator 2019 is €2.250.000, divided over two
rounds. The budget for the first round is €1.150.000 (23 projects of €50.000) en the
budget for the second round is €1.100.000 (22 projects of €50.000).

1.3. Validity of the call for proposals

This call for proposals is valid for the first round of the Idea Generator in 2019. This
call for proposals is valid up to and including the date on which the NWO executive
board has taken a decision about the proposals. The deadline for submitting a
proposal is the May 2, 2019, 14:00 hours CE(S)T.
3

2. Aim

Ideas are the foundation for all research: ideas that turn out to be promising new
research directions but definitely also ideas that show that other directions need to
be pursued. The Idea Generator call intends to foster this curiosity by supporting
new ideas into high risk, high gain science projects. The Idea Generator intends to
advance research with potential for high societal gain, which also comes with a high
risk of failure or research that is too early in its development for a positive
evaluation in a regular peer review process. The Idea Generator supports creative,
out-of-the-box thinkers to submit exciting and innovative ideas which are relevant
for the NWA-programme. The Idea Generator call is also a way of executing the
NWO Strategy 2019-2022 by supporting high-risk-high-gain research.

Because the NWA fosters the connection between research and society, the Idea
Generator only funds proposals that start from a societal question and/or that have
the potential for societal impact.

Because the Idea Generator stimulates risky research, projects are required to
communicate about all outcomes of the projects. Not just projects that show new
potential, but also projects that show negative results and thus that redirection is
needed, are important to share.

In the Idea Generator, small projects can be funded to further develop a new idea
by doing research. Applicants of all disciplines and backgrounds are welcome.
Proposals that focus on practice-oriented research, applied research or fundamental
research are welcome. (Young) researchers can individually apply, but they can also
work together with co-applicants.
4

3. Guidelines for applicants

3.1. Who can apply

Researchers can submit an application, as main applicant or as co-applicant, if they:

− are employed at one of the following organisations:
o Universities based in the Kingdom of the Netherlands;
o University medical centres;
o NWO and KNAW institutes;
o Universities of applied sciences, as meant in article 1.8 of the Dutch
Higher Education and Research Act;
o TO2 institutes ;
o the Netherlands Cancer Institute;
o the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen;
o the DUBBLE Beamline at the ESRF in Grenoble;
o NCB Naturalis;
o Advanced Research Centre for NanoLithography (ARCNL);
o Prinses Máxima Center for pediatric oncology.

Main applicants do not need to have a permanent position. Application is thus also
open for PhD-candidates, postdocs, researchers at Universities of Applied Sciences
or other researchers with a temporary position.
A researcher can submit one proposal in 2019, regardless of whether someone
applies as main applicant or co-applicant.

3.2. What can be applied for

The maximum grant amount is €50.000 per project. The maximum run time of the
project is one year.

For the NWA Idea Generator there are no requirements or obligations on the form
of the research. This means that any type of research suited to execute the
proposed idea is possible. Examples of types of research that could be chosen for
are (societal) internships, living labs/field labs/knowledge labs, ‘researchers in
society’ where researchers can perform a project at a public or private organisation.

Any type of costs (personal, material, travel, etc.) can be requested. The proposed
spending of the €50.000 must be described in the budget table and should be
clarified. The proposed spending of the budget should support the proposed idea
and execution. The committee will evaluate this under the criterion ‘Project Plan’.

3.3. When can applications be submitted

The deadline for the submission of proposals is May 2, 2019 14:00 CET

When you submit your application to ISAAC you will also need to enter additional
details online. You should therefore start submitting your application at least one
day before the deadline of this call for proposals. Applications submitted after the
deadline will not be taken into consideration.
5

3.4. Preparing an application

− Download the application form from the electronic application system ISAAC or
from NWO’s website (on the grant page for this programme).
− Complete the application form.
− Save the application form as a pdf file and upload it in ISAAC.

3.5. Conditions on granting

Open Access
All scientific publications resulting from research that is funded by grants derived
from this call for proposals are to be immediately (at the time of publication) freely
accessible worldwide (Open Access). There are several ways for researchers to
publish Open Access. A detailed explanation regarding Open Access can be found on
www.nwo.nl/openscience-en.

Data management
Responsible data management is a fundamental aspect of good scholarly practice.
NWO wants research data that emerge from publicly funded research to become
freely available, as much as possible, for reuse by other researchers. Furthermore
NWO wants to raise awareness among researchers about the importance of good
data management. Research proposals should therefore satisfy the data
management protocol of NWO. This protocol consists of two steps: 1) a data
management section and 2) a data management plan.

The data management section is part of the research proposal. Researchers are
requested to answer four questions about the management of their data within their
intended research project. If no data is collected this can be indicated here.

After a proposal has been awarded funding the researcher is requested to work out
the data management section into a data management plan according to the
prescribed template. In the plan the researcher describes whether use will be made
of existing data or a new data collection and how the data collection will be made
FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable. Further information about the
data management protocol of NWO can be found at www.nwo.nl/datamanagement.

Start of the project

The project can start as soon as the granting decision has been communicated and
should start no later than three months after the granting decision.

Accountability and completion of the project

Accountability
The main applicant will be responsible for reports about the project. For these short
projects, NWO will not request interim scientific and financial reports, but only a
final short report.

Online project page

For every running project, the public summary will be posted on a project page.
When the project is completed, the main applicant will be asked to write a short
summary of the actions taken in the project and what the (positive and/or negative)
results are.

3.6. Submitting an application

An application can only be submitted to NWO via the online application system
ISAAC. Applications not submitted via ISAAC will not be taken into consideration.
6

A main applicant must submit his/her application via his/her own ISAAC account. If
the main applicant does not have an ISAAC account yet, then this should be created
at least one day before the application is submitted to ensure that any registration
problems can be resolved on time. If the main applicant already has an NWO-
account, then he/she does not need to create a new account to submit an
application.

For technical questions please contact the ISAAC helpdesk, see Section 5.1.2.
7

4. Assessment procedure

4.1. Procedure

The NWO Code of Conduct on Conflicts of Interest applies to all persons and NWO
staff involved in the assessment and/or decision-making process.

Timetable
02 May 2019 14.00 CET Deadline submission first round 2019

May 2019 Eligibility checks and sending proposals to

selection committee.

June 2019 Meeting selection committee

Granting decision Executive Board NWO

NWO informs the applicants about the decision

Three months after granting Deadline for starting research

decision

Eligibility of the proposals

The first step in the assessment procedure the proposals is to test whether the
proposal is eligible. This is done using the conditions stated in Chapter 3 of this call
for proposals. Applications that satisfy these conditions will be declared eligible and
will be taken into consideration by NWO.

If it is possible to correct the proposal (NWO will assess that), then the applicant will
be given the opportunity to modify his/her proposal within a reasonable period. If
the corrected proposal is not received within the time set, then NWO will not take
the proposal into consideration. Corrected proposals that are approved will still be
taken into consideration.

Assessment of the proposals

In the assessment procedure one selection committee will be involved.
The selection committee will assess the proposals according to the assessment
criteria (see Section 4.2).

Decision taking
In June 2019, the selection committee will submit the proposal for granting or
rejecting proposals to the NWO executive board for the final granting decision.

The data management section in the application is not evaluated and therefore not
included in the decision about whether to award funding. However, the committee
can issue advice to the applicant with respect to the data management section. After
a proposal has been awarded funding, the researcher must elaborate the data
management section into a data management plan. Applicants can use the advice
from the committee when writing the data management plan.

Qualifications
NWO will award a qualification to all proposals. This qualification will be made known
to the applicant together with the decision about whether the application has been
awarded funding.
8

Only applications that receive the qualification ‘excellent’, ‘very good’ or ‘good’ will
be eligible for funding. For further information about the qualifications, see
https://www.nwo.nl/en/funding/funding+process+explained/nwo+qualification+syst
em

4.2. Criteria

The selection committee will assess the applications using the following three
criteria:

(I) Societal question and impact

(II) A high risk and creative idea
(III) Project plan

Criterion I is conditional for criteria II and III: applications will first be assessed on
criterion I. An application must receive the qualification excellent/very good on
criterion I to be fundable. If a proposal does not receive this qualification on criterion
I, the application will not be fundable and the application will not be assessed on
criteria II and III.

The assessment criteria have been operationalised into several subsidiary aspects as
stated below:

(I) Societal question and impact

- The proposed project fits with one of the 140 NWA cluster questions
- The proposed problem definition is formulated together with societal
stakeholder(s)
- The proposed project has potential for societal impact

(II) A high risk and creative idea

- the proposed project is a high-risk proposal
- the proposed project is creative, exciting and innovative:
theories/disciplines/methods are combined in novels ways and are not
merely a continuation of earlier research

(III) Project plan

- the proposed project is designed in such a way that the proposed idea can
be executed (NB. This does not mean that the project has to lead to the
expected results, since also negative results are acceptable. This means
that the proposed project is executable)
- the proposed project budget is realistic and support the design of the
project
9

5. Contact details and other

information

5.1. Contact

1.1.1 Specific questions

For specific questions about Idea Generator and this call for proposals, please
contact:

Colette Bos
NWA-IDG@nwo.nl
070-3494706

1.1.2 Technical questions about the electronic application system ISAAC

For technical questions about the use of ISAAC, please contact the ISAAC helpdesk.
Please read the manual first before consulting the helpdesk. The ISAAC helpdesk can
be contacted from Monday to Friday between 10:00 and 17:00 hours CE(S)T on +31
(0)20 346 71 79. However, you can also submit your question by e-mail to
isaac.helpdesk@nwo.nl. You will then receive an answer within two working days.
Published by:
Netherlands Organisation
for Scientific Research (NWO)

Visiting address:

Location the Hague

Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië 300
2593 CE The Hague
The Netherlands

Location Utrecht
Van Vollenhovenlaan 661
3527 JP Utrecht
The Netherlands

March 2019