General EFSD Rules and Regulations

Unless specified otherwise, EFSD grant programmes are only open to applicants from single non-profit institutions or groups of such institutions from Europe and associated countries (for detailed associated country list, please see here). For fellowships, please check individual programme details.

EFSD currently does not accept applications for grants or fellowships from scientists working in Russian institutions. This does not mean that research by Russian citizens is disqualified, only research by and originating from Russian institutions.

The principal investigator (PI) and any co-investigator(s) of EFSD grant programmes must be employed at a non-profit institution and the study must be performed at their place of work based in Europe or an associated country. Collaborators must not be employed by the industry, but are not limited to be located in Europe or an associated country.

Unless specified otherwise, applicants (PI and co-investigators) to all EFSD programmes are encouraged to become paid-up members of EASD. Details on how to become a member can be found on the EASD website www.easd.org or contact membership@easd.org for further information.

The duration of each grant may be one year or longer, depending upon the needs of the project and as justified in the application.

Studies forming part of a larger project will be considered for funding, but this will need to be well justified in the application.

Investigators may only hold one single EFSD award at any given time. This regulation applies to principal investigators as well as co-investigators. It does not apply to collaborators. The EFSD Rising Star Fellowship Programme and EFSD Albert Renold Travel Fellowship Programme particularly are exempt from this regulation.

Recipients of an EFSD award may apply for new funding to the same or to another EFSD programme provided the existing project has been terminated and a final scientific and financial report received, evaluated and approved.

Please note that applications for renewed/continued funding of an existing award will be considered as a new application ("competitive renewal").

As investigators may not hold more than one EFSD award at a time, this may create a problem when a second investigator wishes to apply for EFSD support from within a research group which already holds an active EFSD grant. Such applications will only be considered if the principal investigator named on the second grant can provide clear evidence that he or she is a fully independent researcher. To demonstrate such independence, the PI is required to provide a statement co-signed by the existing grant holder which confirms that

(a) the PI on the new application will appear either as first or last author on any publications arising from the work that may be funded by EFSD, and

(b) that the existing active grant holder will NOT feature as first or last author on any such publications. This undertaking is included in the programme application process, and must be submitted with the application. Any breach of the above publication rule may lead to immediate withdrawal of EFSD funding from both PIs.

All applications will be subject to scientific review by a specialised and independent ad hoc committee. At the discretion of the Review Committee, applications for EFSD awards may undergo pre-review (or triage). In this event, any application rejected at this stage will not be subject to a complete scientific review and no feedback report will be provided to the applicant.

Grant/Fellowship activation documents must be returned to the EFSD Office within six months from the date of the EFSD award confirmation letter/email. In exceptional cases and with the prior written permission of the EFSD Office, this time period may be extended a further six months. Any funding which has not been activated within six months of the award onfirmation letter/email date (in exceptions twelve months) will be automatically withdrawn without any further notice. Further information on the exact documents to be submitted can be found in the activation documents (e.g. proof of the legal form of the recipients institute).

Please note that a copy of the confirmation and/or signature page of all ethical approval/s which are needed to carry out the funded project have to be attached to the award activation documents but are not required at the application stage.

All funded applications will receive initial funding instalment upon confirmation of the approval of the Review Committee as appropriate. For one-year projects 90% of the funding will be provided at the start of the programme while the remaining 10% will be paid upon submission, evaluation and approval of a final scientific and financial report. For those projects where funding is distributed over a period of more than one year, the initial instalment will be 50%. A second 40% instalment will be paid upon submission of an interim progress report with the final 10% paid upon submission, evaluation and approval of the final scientific and financial report. All reports will be subject to assessment prior to the release of any further funds. The approval of the respective reports will activate the payment of the next funding instalment.

Should the scientific progress of the interim report be deemed inadequate the report will not be approved in which case EFSD reserves the right to delay or cease payment of any further instalments. This also applies for final scientific and financial reports, i.e. if the final report is not approved or requested documents are missing, EFSD reserves the right to reclaim parts or the full funding amount. In addition, EFSD reserves the right to exclude individuals (all investigators) and/or institutions from future funding.

The misuse of funds will be penalised.

Unused funding amounts must be repaid to the EFSD within 30 days.

If funding for the same budget items requested from EFSD for the project is obtained from other sources, funding for those items by EFSD will be withdrawn (i.e. EFSD will not cover costs that are already covered through other funding sources or that become so during the course of the funding period). Please refer to the requests for applications (RFAs) or application form for further instructions what kind of costs may be reimbursed. 

EFSD funding is to be acknowledged in all scientific publications, abstracts to scientific meetings and poster presentations in relation, either partly or fully, to the EFSD funded project, by the wordings specified in the award activation documents. Failure to respect this requirement may result in administrative rejection of future applications to EFSD, and termination of payment of outstanding instalments in grants of longer duration. EFSD requires to be informed on publications with regard to this grant.

If an EFSD-funded project requires significant changes in its research plan, budget allocations (> Euro 5,000) or a no-cost extension, the principal investigator needs to receive written approval from the EFSD Office.

All recipients of an EFSD award are required to submit a scientific and financial report at the end of the project period. More detailed information regarding such reports can be found in the Report Guidelines. Before the next funding amount is released, if a no-cost extension is requested or when the project period exceeds more than 14 months, interim reports will be required and such reports will be subject to assessment prior to the release of any further funds.

For additional, programme-specific regulations, focus areas, review criteria, funding amounts and eligibility criteria, refer to the individual programme Request for Application (RFA) as well as the Report Guidelines.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact the EFSD Office at foundation@easd.org.