These pilot internships are dedicated to early career researchers (PhD students or Postdocs in their first 5 years after graduation) for providing the opportunity to discuss own structural biology project(s) with one of the Instruct Centres’ leaders. This will give the intern the opportunity to train through tutoring.

Instruct will allocate funds to support small pilot grants in any area of structural biology up to a maximum of €10,000 per project to early career researchers (PhD students or Postdocs in their first 5 years after graduation). Differently from standard Instruct Internship, awarded applicants will be remotely supervised by a Scientific Tutor from one of the Instruct Centres, with whom they will discuss and improve their projects. Projects should propose basic or applied research which is preliminary in nature, with an expectation of receiving hints and collecting data in support of a project plan wider in scope, potentially object of an application for more substantial funding through conventional routes. Projects that include technology and/or software development are encouraged. All proposals must include the use of technologies available at Instruct Centres or develop technologies that will benefit the aims of Instruct. Access to the technologies available in the Instruct-ERIC catalogue will be exploited by submitting a regular request for access.

Call Submission Guidelines

Application Process

Only applications submitted online before the deadline will be considered. Applicants must be registered Instruct users, for any questions contact us directly at support@instruct-eric.org. Applicants must be resident in one of the Instruct member countries.

Projects may be funded up to a maximum of €10,000 to cover consumable costs and small laboratory equipment. The intent of this support is to help early career researchers to develop external funding for projects, i.e. the expectation is that a successful project will lead to the development of a project plan suitable for a grant submission or to develop new technologies that will benefit the aims of Instruct.

Proposals should have the approval of a Principal Investigator at the applicant's Institution as well as the approval of the Scientific Tutor at the selected hosting centre.

At the conclusion of a project and within one year of the project start, a researcher must submit a progress report to the Instruct Training Committee.

The study should be of limited scope and have well defined objectives. Ordinarily, the project should be completed within one year.

Evaluation criteria:

Proposals will be peer reviewed and funding decisions will be taken by the Instruct Training Committee. Comments on the proposal will be available to the applicant.

Assessment criteria

The criteria that Instruct will use to determine successful applications are: (score 0-5 for each element: 0=low; 5=high)

1. Novelty: Is the proposed project innovative and/or novel either in subject area or approach? (score 0-5)
2. Feasibility: Is it likely that something useful will result from one year’s support? Note that high risk/high gain preliminary projects are welcome and will be scored high, while trivial but feasible projects will be scored low (score 0-5
3. Impact: Is there likely to be a high impact on the specific field? (score 0-5)
4. Methodology development: Is there likely to be methodology development that fits the aims of Instruct? (score 0-5)
5. Strengthen European science: Will the research help to build worthwhile links within Instruct or with the European structural biology community and beyond? (score 0-5)
6. Applicant(s): Is the track record and expertise of the research grouping of high quality and relevant to delivering the project proposed? (score 0-5)
7. Resources: How likely is Instruct funding to make a difference (taking account of other funding or institutional support available to the applicant)? (score 0-5)
8. Overall Quality: Is the overall scientific and technological merit of the proposal sufficient for Instruct support. (Y/N)

Review and decision process:

1. 1 external reviewer and 1 internal reviewer will be allocated per application
2. The training committee will recommend awards up to €10,000 each.

Before the Instruct financial officer transfer the funds to the awardee department a letter from the applicant’s institution supporting the project as described in the proposal is required. The award is sent to the applicant’s department upon receiving an invoice for 2/3 of the awarded funds. One third of the funds will only be sent at the end of the project after receiving a project report. The report should be received within six months completion of the work, the report should include a short description of the work performed, use of the Instruct funds and any publications arising from the project. Additionally, all publications must include this acknowledgement " The authors acknowledge the support and the use of resources of Instruct-ERIC through xxxxxx APPID xxx." The applicant is also required to complete their profile on our website. We will use the photo and information in the profile to publish the result of this award in our website. In addition to the award the applicant is encouraged to apply for access to Instruct infrastructure, when/where appropriate, to undertake some of the research (see our catalogue at https://instruct-eric.eu/platform-catalogue). For more information on the access process including the funding available, please go to https://instruct-eric.eu/access-costs-and-funding.