R&D Pilot Project Awards

Early career researchers are invited to apply for the Instruct-ERIC R&D Pilot Award Scheme.

Similar to the TechDev Funding Call, projects from the R&D call aim to generate preliminary data and results which can be used to secure funding for future project grants.

Pilot projects may be funded up to a maximum of €15,000. The funds are expected to cover research expenses but not normally salaries or overheads. The intent of this support is to help researchers develop external funding for projects, i.e. the expectation is that a pilot study will lead to a grant submission to national or international funding bodies.

The call is open to all topics, but must contain aspects of technology or software development within integrated structural biology, accessing technologies/expertise at one or multiple Instruct centres.

This call is specifically aimed at early career researchers as defined in the EU ERC programme. The ERC eligibility criteria comprise researchers with two to seven years of experience since completion of their PhD as well as a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal.

The R&D Call for 2024 has now closed.

Specifications for R&D Projects

Applicants must declare that they are non-tenured, independent researchers that are resident in one of the Instruct member countries or working within an Instruct member intergovernmental organisation.

Pilot projects may be funded up to a maximum of €15,000. The funds are expected to cover research expenses but not salaries. The study should be of limited scope and have well defined objectives. Ordinarily, a pilot study should be completed within one year. A short proposal is required for the initiation of a pilot study. Find out more about the R&D Pilot Project specifications here.

R&D Project Testimonials

A great example of an R&D Pilot study is from Instruct-CZ. The paper from Bláha et al (2022) focused on Natural Killer Cell Receptor-Ligand Complexes.

Ondřej Vaněk, a corresponding author, said, “Instruct was really instrumental to [the project’s] success, both the provided access to various platforms and the R&D Pilot Project funding helping us to achieve the aim of publishing more than just a structure itself, but also its biological implications for immune recognition.”

Read the science highlight here

Recipients of past R&D Project Funding