Guidelines

Calendar

The 2023 Call for Applications is now closed.

Guidelines

The Fund considers projects jointly submitted by two scientists at the beginning of their careers.

• On the American side, researchers at the post-doctorate level, assistant or associate professors at a university in the United States are eligible.
• On the French side, researchers at the post-doctorate level, maîtres de conferences, and chargés de recherche at a French institution of higher education and research are eligible.
• Consideration will also be given to different career paths as other statuses can be considered as long as the researchers are still at the beginning of their careers (less than 15 years after obtaining their PhD).

US or French citizenship is not required. Applicants must provide proof that they are employed at either the US or French institution for at least the duration of the partnership, i.e. 2 years.

Senior researchers may be included as team members but not as project leaders. PhD candidates are not eligible as project leaders. However, the participation of PhD students in projects is an important criterion in the selection process.

Additional partner institutions may be added to the project proposal, but these additional partners will not receive any funding from the Transatlantic Research Partnership. Only the research or higher education institutions of the project leaders will receive funding.

Funding and Eligible costs

Selected projects will receive a $20,000 grant, to be shared equally between the French and the American partners over 2 years. All award funds will be wired in U.S. dollars to the grantees’ institutions and will be managed by the appropriate financial manager.

The grant will be allocated in one installment to each partner to be used over the two-year grant period. Grantees shall use the funds specifically to support the research submitted to the Transatlantic Research Partnership. The grant will cover travel, housing, accommodation and other expenses falling within grant expense rules explained further.

Travel expenses between France and the US shall not exceed 1,500$ per flight (round trip). Accommodation costs and living expenses in the partner countries shall respect the following:

• Short travel (<15 days): $ 200/day

• Long travel (>15 days): $ 130/day

The total cost of other expenses should not exceed 40% of the total grant for both partners (i.e. $8,000 for a grant of $20,000). These expenses include organizational costs of joint conferences (logistics, meals, venue rentals), publications costs, dissemination costs (international conference), costs for additional partners, and travel/accommodation/living costs for project purposes in 3rd country.

Restrictions regarding grant spending may apply in the following way. No general overhead or administrative costs can be covered by the Transatlantic Research Partnership. Grants cannot be used to purchase equipment or to pay for release time for faculty.

Besides, grants cannot be used to pay salaries or stipends, or to cover everyday living expenses that would be incurred regardless of the project. It may be used for living expenses necessary for project-related travel.

Application requirements

Only complete applications will be reviewed and considered.

The application must include the following documents:

• The filled-out budget template.

• Two letters of intent (LOI), signed by the President, Chancellor, Provost, Head of Department, Head of Laboratory, Head of the International Relations Office, Head of the Contracts & Grants Office, or any comparable representative: one for each institution. This letter can be either in French or in English; a translation is not necessary. This letter cannot be signed by the project leaders themselves, even if they are Head of Laboratory or Head of Department.

• One curriculum vitae in English of each of the project leaders, stating their current affiliations, with no pictures (each CV shall not exceed TWO pages).

Please include the American and the French project leaders’ last names in the title of the files. Example: “APPLICATION_SMITH_MARTIN.pdf”. Once submitted, the application cannot be changed. Researchers may submit a maximum of ONE application per funding cycle.

Joint applications will be reviewed and evaluated by independent experts and a Franco-American grant review committee. The criteria considered for evaluation include the scientific excellence of the project, the quality and skills of the teams involved, and the expected impact and resonance of the project.

Project implementation and reporting

Following the announcement of the final decision to successful applicants in July 2023, respective universities of the grantees will sign an agreement with the FACE Foundation.

Selected projects will be reviewed twice:
• At the end of the first year with an intermediary progress report to confirm both scientific and financial integrity,
• At the end of the second year with a progress report final activity and financial reports.

The template of the progress and financial reports will be provided by the Transatlantic Research Partnership team to ensure the comparability of information. It will have to be jointly filled by the two project leaders. Complete tracking of all expenditures from the Transatlantic Research Partnership grant are expected as part of the progress report and final report. The reports should highlight the main results and outputs of the projects as well as any problems that have arisen and how they have been solved.

Financial activities must be reported in US dollars, including the French institution financial report, and use the exchange rate of the day of the grant transfer for both the first and second-year reports.

In case of any significant changes in the work program, the project leaders must inform the Transatlantic Research Partnership team, who will discuss with them the proper action to be taken before starting a new activity.

Projects must be completed within two years of their initiation. Failure to provide the required reports may result in the recipient’s grant privileges being revoked.

Intellectual property and acknowledgment of sponsorship

The FACE Foundation / Transatlantic Research Partnership does not manage intellectual property between institutions. Publications of any kind resulting from the joint project will explicitly mention the support granted by the Transatlantic Research Partnership with the following sentence: “This material is based upon research supported by the Transatlantic Research Partnership of the Embassy of France in the United States and the FACE Foundation.”

Contact

Vincent Lépinay
Higher Education Attaché

Meggy Kinder
Program Administrator
trp@face-foundation.org