Doctoral Programme Ageing, Regeneration, and Drug Research (DP ARDRE)

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Application information

The ARDRE programme aims to recruit 12 early-stage researchers (ESR) as doctoral candidate fellows who are academically excellent and committed to science, as well as having a strong interest in pursuing research in an interdisciplinary framework on ageing, regeneration, and drug research.

The selection process follows the principles set out by the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. After formal screening of completeness and eligibility, the recruitment committee and experts review all applications in a two step evaluation process.  

 

 The fourth call for the following project

Plant aging (PA)

is now open. Interested candidates are asked to carefully

check the eligibility criteria and follow the instructions below before submitting an application 

until 22/11/2021

by e-mail to: dp-ardre@uibk.ac.at

 

Eligibility criteria and application requirements

ESR eligibility criterion

Early-stage researchers (ESR) shall, at the call deadline, be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and have not been awarded a doctoral degree. Full-time equivalent research experience is measured from the date when a researcher obtained the degree which would formally entitle him or her to embark on a doctorate, either in the country in which the degree was obtained or in the country in which the researcher is recruited or seconded, irrespective of whether or not a doctorate is or was ever envisaged.

MSCA mobility rule

Applicants may have not resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Austria for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the call deadline.

PhD study qualification criterion

Applicants must be in possession of a master degree or equivalent degree (corresponding to at least 120 ECTS points and including a master thesis) in a relevant field: biology, chemistry, pharmacy (for specific requirements on each topic please see the list of thesis topics.

What is expected from the candidates

• Applicants show an excellent academic record and a strong commitment to scientific research
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills
• Willingness to work and communicate in a multi-disciplinary research environment, and to fully participate in the programme's joint training, mobility and outreach activities
• Secondments requirements: applicants are expected to participate in cross-sectoral and international activities, such as secondments and short research visits to academic and non-academic partner institutions

Requested application documents

• Letter of motivation
  
• Declaration of research interests, this must include a statement (approximately one page) why plant aging is of interest for the ESR;
  
• In case that an own project (different from the suggested topics) is proposed by the applicant, the supervisor representing this research field has to be contacted in advance and asked for a letter of support of the project (see the list of Supervisors). An Ethics Assessment Form will have to be completed by all applicants who propose own research topics.
• CV, including a list of previous scientific expertise, skills, and publications (if applicable)
• Scanned copies of transcripts of records for BSc and the MSc (or equivalent degree) including diplomas. 
  (Only documents proofing the conclusion of the studies will be accepted. Intermediate certificates or confirmations, temporary transcripts etc. are accepted only if these include all information also provided by the final documents. Please check our Guideline to Translation and Authentication: original documents will also have to be provided in the original before acquiring a job and study contract.)
  
• Proof of fluency in English at minimum B2 level (Upper Intermediate English; e.g. studies in English or an
  internationally accepted certificate)
• List of two academic reference persons, including contact details, who can be contacted for a letter of reference.
• MSc thesis (or equivalent), as submitted to the applicant's university (if already available). If the MSc thesis is not yet available, provide a one-page summary of your MSc research.
  

How to prepare and submit your application

1. The complete set of "Requested application documents", listed above, must be submitted before the
   call deadline: November 22nd 2021
   
2. All documents have to be compiled into one (!) PDF file:
   •  Minimum PDF version: 1.4
   •  Maximum file-size: 19 MB (grayscale suffices, text must be readable) 
     
   •  Name the PDF as within the quotation marks: "LastName_FirstName_application_dpardre.pdf"
3. Send the PDF file as an email-attachment to dp-ardre@uibk.ac.at:
   
   •  Compose the subject line as within the quotation marks: "Application DP ARDRE"
   •  Use the text of your letter of motivation as text for the email-body
   •  Provide contact information (email, telephone, postal address) within the e-mail body
     

In case of any questions, please contact the DP ARDRE Management Team before your application via dp-ardre@uibk.ac.at.

Steps of the selection process

The following text briefly informs about the assessment procedures after submission of the applications. All applicants will be informed in due time via e-mail on the further status of their applications and the process of recruitment.

First assessment stage

Applications will be checked for eligibility. On all eligible proposals, the Ethics Advisory Board will conduct an ethics check with the aim to recognise applications that raise serious ethical concerns of any kind and to exclude those applications from the selection procedure. All proposals which have passed the ethics check will be evaluated by an external international peer review board. Based on the scores, selected candidates will be invited for personal interview. Applicants who have not scored above the threshold will receive a feedback including the averaged scores.

Second assessment stage

Personal interviews, presentations and discussion of invited candidates (either on site in Innsbruck or if necessary by remote video conferencing) will be performed. Candidates are expected to give a presentation (20 min) on their MSc thesis, followed by a scientific discussion on the presentation and thesis (ca. 10 min), and a general interview with questions on their motivation, other scientific, professional or volunteer experiences (ca. 10 min), and possibility for questions from the candidates to the supervisors or the ARDRE management (ca. 10 min). All candidates (including those rejected after the second stage) will receive a written feedback summary report, commenting on strengths and weaknesses, based on the evaluation report from the recruitment committee.

Redress procedure

Candidates may appeal for a redress procedure within one week from notification, if they feel that the evaluation of their application has shortcomings, or believe that results of the eligibility check are incorrect. Redress requests have to give a clear description of the reasons for objection, and can relate to the handling of the evaluation process and the eligibility checks, but will not call into question the judgements of the expert reviewers. The appeal committee acts independently from the recruitment committee and advises on a possible re-evaluation of the application.

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Funding

This project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 847681.