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Ex-post Grants FSS

Last updated on 22 January 2024
The ex-post grant, an Incentive Grant (Stimuleringsbeurs), aims to reduce the application pressure by providing financial support to scholars at the Faculty of Social Sciences who have applied for external funding and received a very good/excellent evaluation from their peers but no funding.

  • Ministry Conditions for incentive Grants*

    The OCW established the following design and conditions for incentive grants: 

    Target Group and Scope

    Tenured professors, associate professors, and assistant professors* with a permanent contract are eligible for incentive grants.

    * Starter grant holders are excluded from incentive grants for the durations of their starter grants.

    Grant Amount and spending conditions


    The researcher receives a grant up to €300,000. This amount is available for;

      • direct research costs (including salary costs for a PhD candidate, the employment of a lab assistant, data engineer, or other colleague,
      • the use of laboratories and other research facilities, etc.) and the indirect costs associated with the research, and for
      • the indirect costs amount to a maximum of 20% per starter grant.

    The grant has maximum 6 year usage period.

    It is non-transferable and returns to the faculty in case of departure.

    The grant can be carried to another department or faculty within the same university.

    Unspent funds are returned to the university.

    Concurrence with existing programsResearchers can apply to NWO grants without restriction

    *Ministry Conditions for Incentive Grants apply to the ex-post grants as well.

  • Faculty Guidelines for Ex-post grants

    The eligibility criteria are:

    Candidate’s eligibilityAn ex-post grant can only be applied for by an employee with a permanent contract.
    Grant decision date

    Grant decision date determines which round people can participate.

    • For 2023, the cut-off dates were 1-1-2021/31-12-2022.
    • For 2024, the cut-off dates are 1-1-2023/31-12-2023.
    External (not VU or Faculty grants), competitive & peer-reviewedThe original grant acquisition should be about a project larger than 250k, external, in competition with other academics and very good/excellent externally peer-reviewed**.
    Individual & consortia proposalsEx-post grants are open to both individual (e.g. VIDI, ERC Consolidated) as well as PIs of consortia grant proposals (e.g. Horizon Europe Program), thus where FSW staff had been registered as Principal Investigator (PI) of the consortium.
    BudgetThe submitted project budget must be larger than €100k and have been officially approved by both the HoD and the managing director in the system, MENDIX.

    Exclusions apply to individuals who:

    • Do not meet all specified criteria
    • Are starter grant holders during the period of their grant meaning from the grant decision date until the end of their project
    • Currently hold ex-post grants during the period of their grant meaning from the grant decision date until the end of their project
    • Do not have an officially approved budget for their applications.
    • Applications with similarities to those already awarded by the same funding authority or other sources.

    To apply, candidates are required to provide the original grant proposal, the rejection letter with the decision date, the full proposal evaluation, and the approved budget within the application deadline announced by the RO at the beginning of each round. The applications that are received past deadline set are not eligible.

    ** Table of Quality Threshold Examples for Potential Eligible Grant Applications

    The list is intended to provide future applicants with an understanding of potential eligible proposals submitted for different grant schemes. It is not intended to be restrictive. Applications that meet the eligibility criteria but are not listed here are welcome to apply. Each eligible application not in this list undergoes detailed review by RAB due to the unique subsidy process and assessment, ensuring alignment with the ex-post criteria for fair and equal evaluation.

    NWO/ZonMw
    • Proposals that passed the pre-selection phase: full proposals
    • Individual grants score ‘’very good’’ – ‘’excellent’’
    • Aspasia candidates are included
    ERC
    • Individual grants that reached Step 2: score A (fully meets excellence criterion)
    Horizon Europe
    • Consortium proposals with VU as PI & for EU-ranking above threshold (Above threshold: despite the proposal having passed all the thresholds, it could not be funded by the EC in view of the limited budget available for the call. Every call has a different threshold.)
    NRO
    • Applications that have completed the full proposal assessment (all phases) with very good/excellent review
    • NRO offers varied funding, primarily for education projects (not eligible for ex-post grants) and some research funding (eligible for ex-post grants).

  • The allocation process

    Based on guidance from the ministry and the faculty spending plan, the following process has been established for the allocation of the ex-post grants.

    DATA COLLECTION

    1. List of Past Applications: The Research Office (RO) compiles a list of applications submitted in the last two years using the financial system MENDIX. This list includes only the budgets approved by department heads and the managing director. Excluded are budgets that did not go through the official approval system and lacked approvals from both the respective department head and the managing director.
    2. Collecting Missing Information: Grants advisors review the list to fill in missing data regarding application status (not submitted, rejected, waiting for results). During this phase, the RO may contact potential candidates to gather information about the status of their applications. The goal is to complete missing information, update the list, and identify potentially eligible candidates. Non-eligible candidates, such as starter grant holders, existing ex-post grant holders, and those who have already received grants for their applications, are removed from the list.
    3. List of Potentially Eligible Candidates: A shortlist of eligible candidates is created based on available information. Since the RO may not have all details for each application, such as result date, evaluation result, or researcher's permanency, this is not the final list. Input is required from researchers and their departments to refine the final candidates.
    4. Contacting Potentially Eligible Candidates: The RAB Secretary reaches out to potentially eligible candidates, sharing the eligibility criteria with them. Candidates fitting all criteria are invited to submit their applications for the ex-post grant. The criteria were established by the Heads of Departments, and applications or applicants not meeting all criteria will not be accepted.

    EVALUATION

    1. Review by Research Assessment Board: The Research Assessment Board (RAB) reviews all applications and determines grant awards based on established criteria.
    2. Recommendations to Faculty Board: The list of candidates recommended for an ex-post grant is presented to the Faculty Board (FB) for the final decision.
    3. Confirmation from Faculty Board: The Faculty Board communicates the list of approved candidates to be granted to both RAB and RO.

    FORMAL GRANTING PROCEDURE

    1. Drafting and Signing of Official Grant Letter: Project Management Advisor (PMA), using the list provided by the Faculty Board, prepares the official grant letter signed by the Managing Director.
    2. Formal Notification to Researchers: PMA sends an email to formally notify the researcher about the grant. This email includes the signed grant letter as an attachment, along with a registration form. The email and award letter provide information regarding necessary preparations for initiating the project, including:
      • Contacting project administrators to set up a budget, requiring approval from the head of the department. It is recommended to schedule a meeting with the project controller to discuss details, streamlining communication and preventing prolonged email exchanges.
      • Completing a registration form provided in template format. The grant holder is requested to provide a concise overview of the research proposal, a work plan, projected outcomes, as well as administrative details such as the project start date, duration, and budget details.
    3. Notification to Unsuccessful Candidates: Unsuccessful candidates are informed by the RAB secretary.
    4. Appeal procedure: Applicants who wish to challenge grant decisions can do so by sending an email to the RAB secretary within two weeks after the announcement of the grant decision. The rejection email will include thorough information about the appeal process for applicants who did not receive the grant.

    STARTING THE EX-POST PROJECT

    A project is initiated when a grant recipient receives the formal grant letter from the faculty. The grant holder should share the official grant letter with the project administrators* and request a meeting to discuss and prepare the budget. The budget is digitally stored and submitted for approval through a workflow to the head of the department.

    The project administrator requires both the approval of the HoD and the official grant letter to create the project in the system. Once a project is created in both PCS and SAP, costs and benefits can be recorded in the system. This process is similar to that of a regular research project, with the exception that for starter and incentive grants, a project with an "S/" element is created.

    *The tasks related to the budgets of starter and incentive grants were initially assigned to project controllers. However, as of October 2023, this task have been reassigned to project administration team. The email address of the project administrators is projectadministratie.finad@vu.nl.