SBE Research Office

Research support

• Funding opportunities

  Below we have listed a selection of personal and collaborative funding opportunities per funding organization. For access to a more complete list of funding opportunities (large and small), contact t.a.ivleva@vu.nl and subsidiesdesk@vu.nl. You can also consult a database of various funding options for all disciplines and topics ResearchConnect by logging in with your VUnet ID.

  MOBILITY GRANTS

  International mobility schemes to gain experience at the international top institute abroad and bridge the gap between the PhD award and tenure track appointment.

  NWO Rubicon (conduct research at a top institute abroad for researchers who recently obtained their PhD; max 1 year after PhD)

  Niels Stensen Foundation (work abroad for social committed scientists; max 1 year after PhD)

  MSCA Postdoctoral fellowship (conduct research and acquire news skills through advanced training at a top institute abroad for experienced researchers with a doctoral degree; max 7 ‘research’ years after PhD)

  PERSONAL GRANTS

  Personal grants for talented, creative researchers who engage in innovative research. Awarded to a single principal investigator. Both Dutch Research Council/NWO and European Commission/European Research Council (ERC) offer personal grants for excellent researchers at different stages in their career.

  NWO Talent programme

  VENI (max. 280 k, researchers who recently obtained their PhD)
  VIDI (max. 800 k, experienced researchers)
  VICI (max. 1.5 mln, senior researchers)

  NWO Open Competition
  Various funding options ranging from XS (50k) to XL (750k) in various domains:

  Social Science and Humanities domain
  Science domain
  Applied and Engineering Science domain
  
  European Research Council (ERC):
  Starting grant (max. 1.5 mln, researchers with 2-7 years of experience since completion of their PhD)
  Consolidator grant (max. 2 mln, researchers with 7-12 years of experience since completion of their PhD)
  Advanced grant (max. 2.5 mln, active, leading researchers with a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years).
  
  COLLABORATIVE GRANTS
  To support new interdisciplinary research projects which address complex societal challenges and pursued through the multi-stakeholder collaboration

  National

  Dutch Research Agenda (NWA)

  Facilitate science connection with society through proactive involvement of society and societal partners in the formulation, set-up and realization of research that should lead to scientific breakthroughs and societal change.

  Research along Routes by Consortia
  Consortia of researchers and societal partners from the public and semi-public sectors and industry that work together in designing, realising and applying the research. The applicant chooses a subject based on the routes and on the cluster questions.

  Thematic Programming
  Consortia investigate issues put forward by government bodies. Government bodies annually put forward themes and policy questions that NWO further develops into calls for proposals.

  NWO Knowledge and Innovation Covenant (KIC)

  Projects or programmes aimed at groundbreaking innovative solutions with societal and economic impact in partnership with external public and/or private parties. Obligatory in-kind/in-cash co-financing from partners  

  NWO KIC Collaboration in mission-driven innovation
  Funding between € 750,000 and at most € 4,000,000, with partners co-financing max 10% of the total cash-part

  NWO KIC Demand- driven partnerships
  Funding between € 1.500.000 and € 5.000.000, with NWO financing max 50% of the total cash-part; the rest of the project budget should be funded by co-financing.

  International

  European Research Council - ERC Synergy
  A group of two to maximum four Principal Investigators (PIs) working together and bringing different skills and resources to tackle ambitious research problems, max. 10 mln can be requested

  European Commission - Global challenges and European industrial competitiveness Supports research relating to societal challenges and reinforces technological and industrial capacities. In cooperation with other academic and non-academic partners from different EU member states, large research projects are set up on topics under the thematic Clusters:

  • Health
  • Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society
  • Civil Security for Society
  • Digital, Industry and Space
  • Climate, Energy and Mobility
  • Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

  European Commission – MSCA Doctoral Networks
  Consortia of universities, research centres and companies to train a new generation of researchers through developing skills in entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation.

• Applying for research funding

  The SBE Research Office offers support and guidance on applying for research funding. Note that checks on your budget and on legal issues of your proposal deserve special attention.

  Grant Support
  If you are thinking of putting together a grant application, please get in touch with SBE dedicated grant advisor, Dr Tatiana Ivleva (t.a.ivleva@vu.nl), who offers a broad range of support for finding, writing, and applying for research funding and guidance through various stages of application process from initial idea to writing and submission.

  The following is offered:

  • assistance in identifying relevant national (Dutch Research Council/NWO) and international (European Commission) funding opportunities that are appropriate for the researchers’ career stage, CV and research idea;
  • explanation of the precise requirements of the funding application, such as call background and guidelines;
  • advice on research funding idea and project design at an early stage;
  • guidance through each step of the writing process;
  • critical review of the proposal;
  • support with the actual submission procedure and guidance through the mandatory administrative matters;
  • providing (annotated) templates, forms, standard texts, letters etc.;
  • help with interview and rebuttal.

  SBE grant advisor works very closely with the central VU Amsterdam Grants Department, who also offers various forms of support and organize various grant writing trainings, information sessions, and workshops.

  For news items and updates concerning grants go to News and calls VU Amsterdam Grants Office

  Please also consult ‘Funding opportunities’ section on this webpage.

  Budgets and budget check/support

  Before you submit any proposal, the explicit approval of the project control department is required. Of course, this is also to your advantage: a check by project control guarantees that the costs included in your budget are eligible and properly categorized, taking into account future increases in salary costs, overhead issues etc. In this way, financial risks are minimized. Note that without approval of the project control department, the School cannot be held responsible for any financial problems occurring during or after project execution. For a budget check, support, advice and approval, send at least 4 weeks before the application deadline an email to: Projectcontrol.sbe@vu.nl. 

  Legal checks

  For contracts and legal advice, please contact: legal@vu.nl. Don't forget that all contracts should be signed by Rob de Crom, managing director of the School of Business and Economics.

• Research Ethics and Integrity

  The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam fosters scientific integrity and endorses the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity that  calls  for  honesty,  scrupulousness, transparency, independence, and responsibility. One important aspect of scientific integrity is dealing with human subjects in an ethically acceptable and responsible way. A human subject is a person that partakes in, or is subject to, research in which data on or from this person are being collected. This includes, for instance, people that might be representing themselves or the interests of others (e.g. an organization) in an experiment, interview, survey, online data source and observational study.

  The SBE Ethical Review Board ensures that research involving human subjects is carried out in compliance with relevant institutional, national and international ethics regulations and legal requirements. The main instruments that guide the work of the Ethical Review Board are the:

  • SBE Research Ethics Regulations for Researchers
  • Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (Nederlandse Gedragscode wetenschappelijke integriteit)

  The Ethical Review Board currently consists of the following persons:

  • prof. dr. Harmen Verbruggen (ERB Chair, Department of Spatial Economics)
  • prof. dr. Martijn van den Assem (ERB Member, Department of Finance)
  • dr. Menusch Khadjavi Pour (ERB Member, Department of Spatial Economics),
  • dr. Maura Soekijad (ERB Member, KIN Center for Digital Innovation),
  • dr. Marc van der Wardt (ERB Member, Department of Ethics, Governance and Society)
  • dr. Kacana Khadjavi Pour (ERB Secretary, SBE Research Office)
  • Leighann Kimble (ERB Secretary, KIN Center for Digital Innovation)

  The Ethical Review Board can be contacted via email at rerb.sbe@vu.nl

  Ethics Review Procedure for Researchers

  Online Ethics Self-Check: Regardless of whether projects deal with human subjects or not, completing the ethics review prior to the start of research is necessary for all research projects at SBE. This ensures that SBE fulfills its legal requirement to register all projects that deal with personal data and risky international collaborations. Moreover, completing the ethics review promotes good scientific practices and provides researchers with ethics compliance reports that can be included in submissions to scientific journals or in grant applications.

  In order to complete the ethics review, researchers can make use of the online ethics self-check which is a quick and easy tool that assesses whether research projects comply with the ethics guidelines.

  Researchers whose projects are purely theoretical, that do not involve any data on human subjects, personal data, or are medical will automatically receive a report informing them that they do not have to complete the extended ethics check.

  Researchers whose projects involve human subjects or personal data and that are in line with the Ethics regulations will automatically receive a report that confirms that their research is in line with the ethics regulations and they can proceed with their research.

  Researchers whose projects involve personal data and have ethics issues will be asked to download a copy of their ethics application so that they can send it to the Ethics Review Board for further evaluation.

  Ethics Review Procedure for Students

  All master students are expected to read the Research Ethics Guide for Master Students at SBE before they apply for a research ethics review. The guide explains the research ethics procedure at SBE, the importance of the procedure, as well as the different steps to be followed when submitting a research ethics review. The guide also provides detailed explanations and examples of terms and terminology that master students may not be familiar with. After reading the guide, master students are expected to complete the online self-check.

  Online self-check: With this quick and easy tool, you can check whether your master thesis complies with ethics guidelines or needs to be revised . In case, the conclusion of the self-check is that your study does not need to be revised, you will receive a PDF report of the answers given on the self-check, and a statement by the Ethical Review Board that:

  • your research does not deal with data on human subjects and therefore no research ethics review is required.
  • you have indicated that that the data used in the proposed master thesis research project has already undergone a research ethics review by another Ethical Review Board at the VU, in the Netherlands or another European country.
  • your research complies with SBE’s research ethics guidelines.

  Students that cannot revise their study designs should ask their supervisors to contact the Ethical Review Board (rerb.sbe@vu.nl).

  Research Integrity

  In line with the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, all scientific research conducted at the SBE must be honest, scrupulous, transparent, independent, and research. Confidential counsellors can be contacted with questions about research integrity or concerns about possible violations of academic integrity rules (e.g. concerning authorship, plagiarism, or manipulation/fabrication of research data).

  The Confidential Counsellors that are part of the social sciences cluster and that have been assigned to SBE are listed on the Academic integrity at VU-VUMC page. Researchers may contact the confidential counsellor assigned to the SBE or any of the others listed on this website.

  The criteria for authorship are described in the Netherlands code of conduct for research integrity (art. 3.31), but they are not always clear to everyone or are interpreted in different ways. Therefore, we have created guidelines for SBE researchers.

  Ethics and integrity complaints procedure

  Study participants that seek information on the ethics aspects of a SBE affiliated research project are encouraged to contact the researchers directly.

  Complaints on an ethics decision by the Ethical Review Board, can be directed to the Ethical Review Board Secretariate (rerb.sbe@vu.nl). These complaints will be forwarded to the SBE Faculty Board.

  Complaints on the academic integrity and conduct of a researcher during a study should be directed to the Confidential Counsellors. Information on how this can be done is available in the section above and on the Academic integrity at VU-VUMC page.

  Ethics guides and templates

  SBE Research Ethics Regulations for Researchers

  Research Ethics Guide for Master Students at SBE

  Self-Check form for researchers (Online)

  Self-Check form for master students

  Full Ethics Application

• Research Data Management

  Good research data management implies that digital and analogue research data is managed in a professional and careful manner throughout all the stages of research projects (i.e., the design, collection, processing, analysis, long-term preservation, and sharing of research data).Research data include any materials or information sources that were collected, processed and/or analyzed to generate, support or describe research findings. Examples of research data produced and used at SBE include text files, spreadsheets, surveys, code books, scripts, audio recordings, computational models, databases from secondary sources, specimens, etc.

  SBE views good research data management as one of the prime responsibilities of researchers at the faculty. SBE encourages good research data management practices among its researchers to ensure:

  • Research integrity
  • Data security
  • Reusability

  The SBE Research Data Management Policy and this website provides a guide on how researchers can adopt good data management practices as well as information on the services offered by the faculty that can enable researchers to adopt these practices.

  FAIR principles

  A useful basis for responsible data management are the FAIR principles. The FAIR principles were first introduced in 2016 when the ‘FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship’ were published in Scientific Data. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.  These principles call for research data to be stored safely, carefully curated and made available for reuse as widely and as early as possible. It is important to note that adopting the FAIR principles does not call for openly sharing all datasets, instead data should be “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”.

  More information about FAIR data can be found on the  libguides of the VU library.

  Benefits of RDM for researchers

  The benefits of good data management practices for researchers include:

  • Increased research efficiency
  • Increased visibility and impact
  • Wider dissemination and increased impact of results
  • Enhanced data security, by minimizing the risk of loss, theft or misuse of data
  • Legally and ethically compliant processing of (privacy) sensitive data
  • Ability to meet requirements of funding agencies such NWO and European Research Council that increasingly request data management plans.

  Before Research

  Data Management Plan

  SBE encourages the use of data management plans (DMP) for documenting how data will be handled along the different stages of a project. A DMP is a document that describes a research project as well as how researchers will handle data during and after the research project. It includes information on data collection, storage, processing, protection for privacy, sharing, archiving and publishing. DMPs  are mandatory for PhD candidates at the SBE and for projects whose funding agencies require them to submit one. The European Research Council (ERC), the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and  ZonMw are examples of research funding bodies that require DMPs.

  Data management plans can be created using the DMPonline tool that has built-in templates for most funders and guides on how to respond to questions. The VU library libguides also provide useful information on creating data management plans. Questions can be directed to the faculty data steward (rdm.sbe@vu.nl).

  Ethics Review

  The ethical handling of data also forms an important component of good research data management.  All projects that deal with data on human subjects are required to undergo an ethics review.  Human subjects are people that partake in, or are subject to, research in which data on or from these people are being collected. This includes people that might be representing themselves or the interests of others or an organisation in an experiment, interview, survey, online data source and observational study.

  Researchers can check whether their project need full ethical review using the online self-check tool available here. More information on research ethics and integrity at the SBE are available on the website above.

  Privacy and Security

  Safeguarding the privacy of human subjects participating in research is essential for data management. Research that deals with personal data i.e. data relating to an identified or identifiable natural person must be handled in line with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

  Special attention should be paid to personal data that has been classified under the special categories of data i.e. racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, health data, data on a person’s sex life or sexual orientation, or data concerning criminal convictions and offences. The Privacy Five Step Plan explains the five main considerations to take when processing personal data.

  These slides provide an introduction to the GDPR and its implications for research at SBE. Researchers are strongly advised to contact the faculty privacy champions for advice on the GDPR and privacy  (privacy.sbe@vu.nl).

  The VU library libguides also provide useful information and resources.

  During Research

  During research, data should be stored securely and professionally, meaning that measures have been taken to prevent data loss and data leakage. An overview of other data storage options is available on the VU Library libguides.

  SBE encourages the use of Research Drive for the storage of research data. Research Drive is designed as a collaborative, GDPR compliant cloud storage service that is particularly suited for the storage of personal and sensitive data. It is also ideal for the storage of large datasets.

  In addition to the use of Research Drive, projects that process sensitive data should make use of additional security measures such as anonymisation and pseudonymisation and encryption. The faculty data steward can be contacted for advice on appropriate storage options, anonymisation and data encryption (rdm.sbe@vu.nl).

  Researchers processing big datasets can make use of SciStor Storage for Scientists cloud storage offered by the VU. Researchers that prefer to use other storage platforms that are considered best practices in the field are encouraged to share these with faculty’s data steward (rdm.sbe@vu.nl ).

  After Research

  Upon publication and project completion, all data generated at SBE as well as the documentation detailing how the data was collected and processed should be stored (archived) in a recommended repository such as DataVerseNL for a minimum period of ten years. Questions on the appropriate institutional or discipline specific archive can be directed to the faculty’s data steward (rdm.sbe@vu.nl).

  Whenever possible, researchers are encouraged to store datasets, replication code and data documentation on journal websites as supplementary material for published articles.

  Archived and published datasets that have been generated at SBE should be made findable (the F in FAIR) by registering the dataset in Pure. A guide on dataset registration is available here.

  Researchers who publish datasets along with a paper or in a discipline specific repository can link those locations in their Pure registration, preferably with a persistent identifier. When the dataset itself is not made publicly available, the dataset registration should explain the reasons for that.

  Open Science

  Open Science is a growing international academic movement that aims for accessibility of scientific publications and data, and dissemination to society. It encompasses practices such as preregistration of studies, open Access publishing; making it easier to publish and communicate scientific knowledge, making data FAIR and attributing credit to scientific contributions that go beyond impact factor.

  SBE supports the open science movement and encourages researchers to preregister their research plan, hypotheses, methods and or analysis prior to the start of a research project. Preregistration of studies increases research credibility and transparency as it differentiates the process of generating and confirming hypotheses. The Center for Open Science provides useful resources on preregistration.

  Upon completion of analysis, researchers are encouraged to publish their research output with open access. Information on how this can be done is available on VU Library website here. Questions on open access publishing can be directed here: openaccess.ub@vu.nl

  Researchers at SBE are also encouraged to make use of ORCID iD persistent identifiers to link their  affiliations, works, memberships and peer review activities. This will increase their impact and visibility.

  Useful Documents and links:

  VU Research Data Management Policy

  VU Library Research Data Management Libguides

  NWO Data Management Paragraph Example (contact: rdm.sbe@vu.nl)

  Additional Research Data Support at VU

  In addition to the resources available at SBE, the VU RDM Support Desk at the library can be contacted for RDM-related advice and support. They can be reached via email(rdm@vu.nl) or by phone call 020 598 53 67 during regular working hours.

  Please refer to the Research Data Support portal for a comprehensive overview of all RDM professionals, tools, policies, guidelines, trainings, workshops and best practices at SBE and the VU at large.

• Research time allocation

  The School of Business and Economics, aiming for high quality research, maintains an ambitious system of allocation of research funds, based on the assessment of output. Funds are translated to full time equivalents, which are distributed to departments, according to their members’ relative performance in terms of (research-based) publications. The comparative value of publications is measured through rankings of journals and publishers and (optionally) individual publications’ citations. Quality is favoured over quantity: the system comprises the rating of the five best publications of a researcher over the five past years.

  The allocation of research funding

  The research funding is meant for members of the scientific staff with an appointment on the account of the university or on a structural externally funded position. PhD students and post-docs are not entitled to research funding, other than the funding agreed upon at the start of their contract.

  Entitlements to research funding are based on publication credits and expressed in percentages of full-time equivalents. A maximum of 50 percent can be allocated. The factor that translates publication credits into a specific percentage is determined each year anew. The percentage obtained ought to be multiplied with the employment factor (wtf), to arrive at the number of working hours to be dedicated to research.

  Currently, a minimum of 0.6 publication credits have to be earned in order to qualify for research funding.

  Rules for assessment

  Journal publications

  The ranking of the journals is based on the Article Influence Score, an advanced and robust measure for the average influence of articles in a journal that can be found on Web of Science (Additional Resources → Journal Citation Reports). Using journals’ article influence scores as indicator of quality offers researchers the autonomy to choose topics, research approaches, and publication targets.

  A journal’s weight is derived from the Article Influence percentile among the overall corpus of journals in Web of Science. Starting from 2019, we use the three-year moving average of Article Influence Percentiles (AIPs) to smoothen fluctuations in these scores. For example, for publications in 2019, we will use the average of the AIP scores for 2017, 2018, and 2019. For older publications, we will continue to use the annual AIP score. For recent publications, we use the latest available moving average score. The scores since 2015 can be found here.

  To determine the journal’s weight, the percentile is first divided by 100, and then squared.

  For a single-authored journal publication, the number of credits obtained is simply equal to the journal’s weight in the year that the article was published. With ≤10 authors, that weight is multiplied by 0.75 to obtain the number of credits, and with >10 authors that weight is multiplied by 0.1, when the contribution is done by a non-core author to obtain the number of credits.

  Top journal publications may count one or two years longer. This recognizes that publications in top journals are a signal of high quality and have exceptional impact, yet require a long time to get accepted and are subject to high risks. Specifically, publications in journals with AIP 0.96 will count for six years and with AIP ≥0.97 for seven years, starting from the moment of online publication or final publication (depending upon the author’s preference). So, whereas regular papers published in 2020 may count for research time in the period 2021-2025, publications in journals with AIP ≥0.97 may count for the years 2021-2027). These extensions also hold for publications from earlier years, so you can profit one or two years longer from top journal publications from the past.

  Book reviews are not included in the assessment. Other short journal publications - including editorials (for edited special issues), comments, very short notes, etc. - may qualify for inclusion provided they make a sufficient scientific contribution. Judgements are to be made by a temporary committee. The number of pages is of no consequence for the credits attributed.

  Article-level citation-based score

  Some publications outside top journals are highly cited and have a disproportionally high impact in their field. To recognize this and to stimulate attention for the impact of publications, you get the option to earn research time based upon citations for one article.

  How does it work?

  • For one publication, you have the option to choose either the AI percentile of the journal or the citation percentile of the publication, to calculate publication points.
  • We use the citation-percentile as offered in Scopus (as these are not available in Web of Science). If you enter your name, a list of publications with the number of citations will appear. When you click on the title of the publication, you will see a new page with the metrics of the publication. You will find the percentile on the right. This reflects the percentile score of its citations as compared to articles of roughly the same age. Because Scopus contains more than twice as many journals as Web of Science, the citation-based percentile needs to be adjusted by doubling the distance to the top percentile (e.g., 0.96 becomes 0.92). This adjusted Scopus citation percentile (SCp) needs to be squared, just like AI percentiles, and multiplied by 0.75 for co-authored publications.
  • The same 5-year window will be used.
  • Articles need to have at least 10 Scopus citations as a minimum.
  • The optional replacement of one journal-level score for an article-level score only holds for research time allocation, not for career track decisions. The career track has separate criteria for citations.

  Books

  The listed publishers are classified as A or B; publications with non-listed publishers receive no credits. Single-authored monographs receive 0.85 credits for an A publisher and 0.60 for a B publisher. These scores are multiplied by 0.75 in case of multiple authors. Dissertations receive 0.45 credits. In addition, dissertations that are reissued as monograph by a scientific publisher will be treated as such. Researchers can submit a maximum of one monograph for the allocation of research time.

  Publisher	Rating
  Cambridge University Press (also USA)	A
  Edward Elgar Publishing	B
  Elsevier (including Academic Press)	A
  Emerald Group Publishing	B
  Harvard University Press	A
  MIT Press Publishers Inc.	A
  Oxford University Press	A
  Palgrave Macmillan	B
  Princeton University Press	A
  Sage Publishing	A
  Springer	B
  Taylor and Francis (including Ashgate, CRS Press, Chapman & Hall and Routledge for humanities, social sciences, behavioural sciences, law and education)	B
  University of Chicago Press	A
  Blackwell-Wiley	A

  Summarising, the following credits are attributed:

  Publication	Ranking	Single author	Multiple authors
  Journal	W=(AIp/100)2	W	0.75∙W or if >10 authors: 0.1W
  optional for one journal publication	W=(SCp – (100-SCp)) 2	W	0.75∙W
  Dissertation		0.45	0.45
  Monograph	A	0.85	0.75∙0.85
  	B	0.60	0.75∙0.60

  Additional rules and regulations

  Optional transition to online publication dates

  Researchers have the option to use the date your publication appears first online instead of the date they appear in an issue. This matters when there is a long time-lag between the first time a paper appears online (often soon after acceptance) and the moment it appears in a (paper) issue. If this option is chosen, the date of “first publication” as indicated on the journal’s website is decisive. The five-year window of evaluation will remain the same. Researchers have to inform SBE’s Research Office if they opt for moving to “online first” publication dates. This choice applies to all publications simultaneously and is permanent – it cannot be changed from year to year.

  Publications need to be available open access to count (if possible)

  To count for research time, publications have to be available open access, unless no route to do so is available. The open access requirement can be met through one of the following routes:

  • golden route: publishing in full open-access journal (e.g., PLOS One);
  • hybrid route: using the option to make a paper open access in a regular journal (e.g. covered by VSNU deals; see https://journalpublishingguide.vu.nl/);
  • fast green route: making it public in the VU repository by participating in the “You share, we take care” project. In this project, the VU library will automatically make publications open-access after six months; the only thing researchers need to do is to indicate their participation through this online form. See also the Q&A about “You share, we take care.”

  This rule does not hold for:

  • Books
  • Publications created while the author was not at a Dutch university.
  • Papers published before 2018.
  • Papers published in the last six months of the most recent year (as the “You share, we take care” project uses a six-month embargo)

  Datasets generated at VU have to be registered in Pure

  For publications (from 2020 and later) that are based upon a dataset generated at VU, the dataset needs to be registered in Pure for the publication to count.

  Please note that registration as dataset does not entail making the data public, nor storing it at a central location. Dataset registration only indicates the nature of the data, the place of storage, a contact person for the data, and possible way to get access. Those researchers who publish datasets along with a paper or in a discipline specific repository can link to those locations in their Pure registration. To maintain the autonomy of researchers we are not mandating to archive or publish it in one particular place.

  This requirement does not apply to: (1) publications with no data (e.g. conceptual papers); (2) publications that reuse data from others; (3) data generated prior to employment at the VU; (4) data that is generated by co-authors not at the VU; (5) data that is owned by others or where agreements prohibit making any meta-information about the data public. When submitting your publications to SBE’s Research Office you can explain why compliance is irrelevant or impossible.

  If you have any questions, you can ask our data steward Kacana Khadjavi Pour (k.c.khadjavipour@vu.nl ).

  Regulations for pregnancy and maternity leave

  Researchers who have been on a pregnancy and maternity leave during that period, are allowed to submit their five best publications over the past six years.

  Regulations for part time researchers

  The special regulations for part time researchers are set out in the table below. The principle underlying this ruling is that part time researchers can spend less time in producing scientific output, compared to full time colleagues, and are allowed under this regulation to double count their best publication(s). The extent to which publications can be double counted depends on the researcher's appointment and can be read from the table below.

  appointment fte (average)	5 or more publications	4 publications	3 publications
  0.81-1.00	12345	1234	123
  0.71-0.80	12344	1234	123
  0.61-0.70	12334	12344	123
  0.51-0.60	12234	12334	1233
  0.50 and less	11223	12234	1223

  1= best publication
  2= second best publication, etc.

  When a researcher has less than 3 publications, the score will not be adjusted. The average appointment in fte will be calculated over the part of the 5-year period during which the researcher was appointed at the faculty.

  Researchers who want to use this regulation must state this explicitly. They also have to show that they could not do any research outside the SBE-appointment (for example: a researcher who works for 0,5 fte at another faculty, is not allowed to appeal under this regulation.

• VU Research Portal / Pure

  Pure is the web-based Research Information System of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. It brings together key information on research staff and their publications, projects and activities information. In addition, Pure allows for linking research inputs and outputs, providing a broad picture of research activities at the individual, research unit, faculty and university levels.

  Login to Pure

  The publications registered in Pure are visible on the website on the VU Research Portal. Here you find also the researcher profiles and information on their networks.

  If you have questions concerning Pure and the Research Portal, you can contact the Pure Administrators of SBE:

  - Ellen Woudstra, e.g.woudstra@vu.nl

  - Ina Putter, i.putter@vu.nl

• Open Access

  What is open access?

  Publishing open access means that your publication is freely available for everyone, without any restrictions. The VU believes that research funded by public money, should be publicly available. Moreover, publishing open access makes your research visible for a broader audience.

  Also the Dutch government and funders as NWO aim for 100% open access publication in the near future.

  Click here for more information on open access publication at the VU.

  Click here for more information on open access for academic researchers.

  How can I publish open access?

  There are four routes to open access – gold, hybrid, diamond and green.

  • The golden route Research output that has been published via the golden route is freely and immediately available on the publishers website to the reader. Publication costs (Article Processing Charges or APC’s) are paid by: the author, the author’s institution, or the funding body. The Dutch government has expressed a preference for the golden route for publicly funded research. VSNU and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam support this policy. The University Library has made arrangements with several publishers offering VU and VUmc scientists a discount on publication costs, and in some cases the possibility of publishing Open Access free of charge. Currently more than 8000 journals are included in the agreements, of which more than 4,000 titles have an impact factor with more than 1,000 in the 1st quartile. Further information on publisher's terms and workflow can be found on the APC Arrangements page.
  • Hybrid journals In this variant of gold open access authors publish in traditional subscription journals, but may offer gold open access to their articles by paying APCs. Open Access is then offered to all readers immediately as articles appear on-line.
  • The green route In green Open Access, an article is published in a traditional subscription magazine (not Open Access), after which the final authors version of the article is also deposited in an Open Access repository. At the Vrije Universiteit the repository is PURE. This is called ‘self-archiving’ because publications are registered by the authors themselves. Dutch law grants every author the right to share scientific articles in the publisher's version six months after the first (non-Open Access) publication date. The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has established a guideline that employees of Dutch Universities can use to publish their work in a non-commercial repository or on their personal website. The University Library can support all VU researchers who want to make their publications accessible in this way. We only need your permission to legally share your publications. After permission has been given, the library will  then automatically deposits all your scientific publications in the publisher version (Version of Record) in the VU Research Portal. It is also possible to deposit publications yourself in PURE and to follow the Open Access policy of publishers. Whether publication via the green route is allowed and what embargo period should be observed can be found on the website of  SHERPA/RoMEO, which lists the Open Access policy of all publishers.
  • The diamond route Research output that has been published via the diamond route is freely and immediately available to the reader. The publication fee is not paid by the authors but the cost of editing, peer review, online publication and hosting are borne by an institution, association or fund. By making use of voluntary work provided by scientists in their role as editor or peer reviewer, the costs can be kept to a minimum. The University Library supports the diamond route and can assist in setting up open access journals.

  The University Library has formed an "Open Access team" that organizes various activities related to Open Access. If you have questions about the above or any other questions regarding Open Access, please contact the Open Access team via openaccess.ub@vu.nl

• Science communication

  Making your research findings accessible to a broader audience helps to bridge the gap between society and academia. The feedback you receive might even provide new insights for your future research. But what if discussing your research with others outside your academic discipline does not come easy to you? Don't worry, the research office provides support for science communication.

  Contact science editor Yrla van de Ven (y.f.van.de.ven@vu.nl, office 8A-82) for advice about science communication. She can also help you with disseminating your (new) research to the media and to policy makers.

• Support for creating societal impact with your research

  Do you need support with creating societal impact and income generation? The SBE engagement support office aims to take away the barriers for impact and income generation, by supporting you with the following:

  • Discuss with you how to make societal impact with your research and how to generate income in that process
  • Provide examples of what your SBE colleagues have done and are doing to make impact
  • Explain SBE’s and VU’s strategic priorities when it comes to making societal impact
  • Provide you with (access to) template contracts and other documentation to support you in connecting with third parties (profit and non-profit organizations). This also includes information about pricing and the applicable terms & conditions when interacting with third parties
  • Provide you with the names of the go-to persons in your own SBE department with respect to support for societal impact (‘Power Users’)
  • Connect you with the right support staff and departments in the wider VU organisation with respect to valorisation opportunities when applicable (e.g. IXA-GO / DURF)

  You can reach the engagement support office at eso.sbe@vu.nl.