29 April 2019

Hereby, Advanced Functional Materials, the Strategic Research Area (SRA, SFO) of LiU in Materials Science, announces a call for Infrastructure support, for purchase of equipment (minimum 3 MSEK, maximum 10 MSEK per equipment).

AFM Infrastructure support

  • AFM evaluates the need for new Infrastructure and intends to announce calls on a regular basis for Infrastructure support.
  • AFM aims at strengthening the SRA by contributing to state-of-the-art equipment of broad interest and high strategic relevance for the AFM environment.
  • Proposals for Infrastructure support may be submitted by an AFM applicant (1), who undertakes the role as contact person and assumes complete responsibility for the equipment.
  • AFM will invest up to 2 MSEK/year in total in Infrastructure (as depreciation costs only) (2), corresponding to 1/3 of the cost of purchasing the equipment. LiU will correspondingly co- fund 1/3 of the total depreciation costs, up to 2 MSEK/year, under the same condition. This is under the condition that the equipment is made available to all LiU researchers for utilization.
  • The AFM applicant undertakes the complete responsibility for providing funding for 1/3 of the depreciation costs AND for all running costs.
  • The AFM applicant is responsible for making the infrastructure accessible to other researchers at LiU.
  • This call intends to support up to 5 new Infrastructures.

AFM Infrastructure support – The proposal

AFM Infrastructure support may be granted to an AFM applicant upon submission of a proposal (of no more than 2 pages, excluding budget and CV) to the AFM steering group. The proposal should include:

  • Objectives
  • State-of-the-art
  • Strategic value/value to AFM, including a plan for equipment availability

In addition, please submit:

  • Detailed specification of the equipment
  • Budget (detailing funding for 1/3 of the depreciation costs AND all running costs)
  • Budget guarantee letter, signed by the AFM applicant, by holder(s) of external grant(s) to be used for providing funding for 1/3 of the depreciation costs, by heads of the AFM applicant Divisions, as well as by heads of the AFM applicant Departments (IFM, ITN or IEI).
  • CV and publication list of the AFM applicant, including the ResearcherID.

(1) Researchers within AFM, today employed at IFM, ITN or IEI, main employment, at least 50,1 %, at LiU.

(2) Funding will be granted under the condition that there is an agreement between LiU and AFM on AFM 2019 infrastructure support.

The application, as one-pdf document, should be sent no later than 2019-05-27 to Therese Dannetun, therese.dannetun@liu.se

AFM Infrastructure support – The decision

  • The decision will be taken in the AFM steering group and will be announced on 2019-06-20.
  • For granted proposals, the AFM applicant should provide yearly activity reports until the depreciation is finished. The report should include information about scientific projects, research groups involved, resulting publications, etc.
  • Evaluation criteria: strategic value to AFM, accessibility, scientific excellence, urgency, scientific renewal, maintaining essential infrastructure.