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ICT25 / Submission Guideline / Chapters to fill out

Basic Information

This chapter contains basic information about the proposal, including title, scientific disciplines involved, keywords, duration, and type of project (i.e., regular WWTF Project or Joint Project). Fill out fields as required.

Please note:

  • Scientific Disciplines: Fields will be suggested as you type. WWTF uses the ÖFOS classification system of Statistik Austria.
  • Joint Project: Please indicate if this proposal is a Joint Project, i.e. includes partners from Lower Austria with a higher share possible from the overall project budget. For details regarding team composition and budget distribution, please go to this page.

Personnel and Institutions

This chapter contains information about the main parties in the project. Ideally, information about the PI&C and co-PIs have already been entered. However, this information can be changed at any time.

  • Co-PIs can be added to the project. Please note the maximum of three PIs in the core team.
  • Additional partner institutions beyond those of the core team members can be added under “Further Partner Institutions”. (The institutions of the PI&C and co-PIs are automatically added by the system.) Entering an additional institution provides the option of allocating budget to this institution in the “Budget” chapter. This may be important in case of collaboration with researchers at institutes other than those of the core team members
  • A maximum of five different institutions may be involved in the proposal. This includes the institutions of the PI&C and co-PI(s).

Project

This chapter contains the part of the scientific work programme. Fill out the following fields (please note that the character limit includes spaces):

Summary (max. 1,500 characters)
Please provide an overall project summary. Clearly state the research question and the aims of the team. Describe the most innovative aspects of your proposal, and its potential relevance and impact. 

Introduction, background and state of the art (max. 2,500 characters)
What is the topic and broad background of this research project? What is the state of the art in this field? 

Research questions, hypotheses and objectives (max. 2000 characters)

What are the fundamental research questions/hypotheses that the project seeks to address? What are the goals the project seeks to achieve? Provide an outline of the scientific approach that will be used to address the questions and reach the objectives. The objectives should be achievable within the duration of your project. Please provide preliminary data and any relevant research experience. 

Expected results, novelty and relevance (max. 2000 characters)

What kind of advancements are expected to be gained from the research project? Which aspects of the proposed project are especially innovative? Describe the scientific relevance and the timeliness of the research project. Please note that the development of source code, systems or protocols should not be the main goal of the project; however, they are encouraged in the context of demonstrating the practical applicability of new scientific results.

Methods and feasibility (max. 2000 characters)

Specify the methodology intended to be used in order to answer the research question(s) and objective(s). Describe the basic working principles and concepts, and why the chosen approach/ specific mix of approaches is the most suitable for the research question. Include a short assessment on the feasibility of the approach.

Role of team members and collaborative aspects (max. 1500 characters)

Each team member should describe his/her role in accomplishing the goal of the team. If applicable, which different disciplines are represented in the project and which partnerships across research groups and institutions will result from the project?  Which collaborative elements are essential for the project to succeed; what makes the team more than the sum of its individual contributions? A team member’s contribution should be integrated into the overall plan and should not appear merely as a resource.

Potential for interdisciplinarity, application to other research fields and potential impact (max. 1500 characters)

How will the scientific advancements gained through this project benefit other research fields that are beyond the immediate scope of the project? Describe how the knowledge, methods or technology developed in this project could further understanding or contribute to applications in other research disciplines.

Provide a brief statement how the results from this research project could contribute towards solving a recognised problem that affects broader society or the economy.  

Please note that potential sex/gender aspects of the research topic and gender balance in the research team should be considered throughout the application (see this page). These should be briefly described where appropriate in the relevant sections. Further details will be required in the full proposal phase.

Ethical considerations (max. 500 characters)

Indicate if ethical approval of an ethics committee or institutional review board is required for the project. If so, please describe the potential ethical aspects and upload the ethical approval(s) as a single PDF. There is no page limit for the approvals, but the document may not exceed 10 MB. If no ethical aspects are identified, please provide a brief statement. Describe the process and the involvement and awareness of the core team and staff.

An acknowledgement of receipt from the ethics committee/institutional review board must be submitted with the proposal. The final approval (“Votum”) must be submitted to WWTF the latest before project start.

References

In this chapter, up to 15 key references relevant for the project can be added. Please note that these references should focus on the content of the proposal and is not your personal publication list. The latter should be included in the CVs of the core team members.

  • The system can import publication data from external databases, e.g., by DOIs. For PubMed, use the number of pubmed.gov. For arXiv, use only the numbers without “arXiv:”. Please note that this service is beta and thus does not always work perfectly. We are working on improving this feature.
  • Please use a uniform reference style. If you import references through the database lookup, use the style of the imported reference for the references entered manually.

Budget

The short proposal requires only an overview budget for each participating institution. All institutions added in the chapter “Personnel and Institutions” will be automatically listed in the budget table.

  • Enter the sum for personnel costs at each institution. Please consider that, in the full proposal, you will be required to enter the annual gross costs (employer and employee costs = gross costs) of all individual researchers. If you are unsure about the annual gross costs, please consult your institutional research service. Due to projected inflation rates, the full proposal system will automatically calculate a 6% p.a. increase in salaries over the lifetime of the project.
  • Enter the total non-personnel costs for each institution. For details about eligible costs, please refer the “Call Specifications” document.
  • Up to 20% overhead costs may be claimed. Please consult your institutional research service also in this regard.

The system will automatically calculate sums and ratios of the budget. 

  • Based on the information provided, the share of the budget allocated to the regions “Vienna” and “Other” will be shown for WWTF projects and to the regions “Vienna”, “Lower Austria” and “Other” for Joint Projects.
  • For “regular” WWTF projects, at least 80% (i.e., ≥80%) of the requested funding must be allocated to the region “Vienna”. Up to 20% (i.e., <20%) may be allocated to other partner(s) (including partners in Lower Austria).
  • For Joint Projects, the budget allocated to the region “Vienna” must be ≥50%. The share of the budget allocated to the region “Lower Austria” must be between 20–50% (i.e., >20% and <50%). Up to 20% (i.e., £ 20%) may be allocated to further partner(s) located in other regions (“Other”).
  • The proportions of the budget allocated to personnel and non-personnel costs are also shown. Please note that, in this call, non-personnel costs should not exceed 25% of the total budget.
  • The system will display an alert if the inserted amounts exceed the permitted funding distribution across regions or cost types.
  • Please note that changing the proposal between “WWTF Project” and “Joint Project” types will reset the budget table due to differing budget distribution requirements.

 Explanation of Cost Planning (max. 750 characters) 

Please provide details about the planned resource allocation

In the case of an invitation to submit a full proposal, there should not be significant changes in the requested budget compared to the short proposal. Exceptions are permitted but require justification.

Signatures

Submission of the proposal requires the signatures of the authorized person(s) at the host institutions of the PI&C and co-PIs (“Authorization”). Please consult your institutional research services regarding the person mandated to sign the proposals and plan sufficient time to obtain their signature. 

  • Enter the name of each authorized person in the online form. This information will be included in the PDF to be signed.
  • Download the PDF using the link “You can generate the signature sheet here”.
  • Signatures may be provided in various formats:
    • Add a scanned or physical signature, and upload the form;
    • Insert an electronic signature (e.g., A-Trust, Handysignatur) and upload the form. Please note that electronically signed PDFs cannot be merged into a single document.

Unlike proposals in the previous Submission System, signatures from the core team are no longer required in the new Funding Portal.

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