Introduction

The 2010 Internal Competition will follow FEMISE new strategy regarding quality of the research and broader dissemination. Also new funding schemes are applied. The FEMISE 2010 Scientific Program provides guidelines for the main research themes and the specific questions that need to be addressed by FEMISE teams in this competition. This year, around 15 proposals will be selected by the Research Selection Group (RSG) with an approximate total budget of € 640,000. The number of selected proposals is only indicative and will depend on the quality of the submitted proposals. Funding of these projects will be made from the European Commission grant to FEMISE.

Download here a PDF version of this notice for print.

I. ELIGIBILITY

1) Only FEMISE members’ institutes can apply to this internal competition. However, non-FEMISE members could be part of an ELLIGIBLE consortium (as detailed in the following item 2).

2) All proposals have to be submitted in Consortiums, with the following two options: (1) at least one FEMISE member from the North AND one Femise member from the South;  OR  (2) including at least 2 Femise members from the South. Each consortium should have one Team Leader who will send the proposal on behalf of the consortium and will be responsible for the project (including signing the contract and distribution of funds); he/she will be the contact person for all correspondence with FEMISE. Proposals submitted with ONE member only will not be considered.

II. LEVEL OF FUNDINGS AND FUNDING SCHEMES

In this 2010 internal Competition, FEMISE is adopting a new Funding Scheme. Each submitted proposal should indicate a choice between two types of funding depending on the nature of the proposed project:

1. Short-term projects (12 months maximum). These projects follow the previous system of financing of three categories: €20,000; €40,000; or €60,000 and will be called “global fees contracts”. Proposals in this category of funding should include a detailed budget reflecting the requested amount (from the three categories available) and how it will be distributed on the different items of the project and across the different institutes members of the consortium. The requested amount/category will be revised by the Selection Committee (RSG) who reserves the right to modify it, in case necessary.

2. Long-term projects (12 to 24 months). These projects could involve primary data collection and/or larger country coverage that would require longer time and more funding. These will be called “Fee-based contracts”. Proposals in this category of funding should include detailed estimated budget of the project (including number of working days per researcher, rate per day, expenses related to seminars, travel, publications, ..etc). The maximum budget that can be requested in this category is €120,000. The requested amount will be examined in details by the Selection Committee (RSG) as part of the decision to accept/reject the proposal (PS: exaggerated or non-justified amounts could lead to a rejection of the project) and they have the right to reduce final amount. These types of contracts will include an advance amount and the final payment will be based on successfully completion of the project and presentation of the required financial documentation for reimbursement.

III. SUBMISSION PROCESS

1. The dossier of the research proposal of the consortium should be submitted by the team leader and should include the dedicated forms (all the forms except CVs are available in the application form below depending on the type of Contract) as follows:

(i) Cover letter

(ii) Form 1: Application form 2010

(iii) Form 2: Research Proposal

(iv) Form 3: Budget form(s)

(v) Form 4: CVs of members of the research consortium (click to download)

Download here application for Short-term project

Download here application for Long-term project

2. The dossier of the research proposal of the consortium can be sent to FEMISE bureau by email, fax or courier (please see below the new address of FEMISE bureau) before 6th of September 2010.

Dr. Frédéric Blanc

FEMISE Association

CMCI

2 rue Henri Barbusse,

13 241 Marseille Cedex 01

FRANCE

Fax : +33 491 31 50 38

email: ci2010@femise.org

Please make sure to use this email to avoid any difficulties.

IV. EVALUATION AND SELECTION PROCESS

After the first screening of the proposals for eligibility, they go through the following process:

1. The FEMISE Refereeing Committee (FRC) performs the technical evaluation of the proposals. This committee includes about 20 economists and researchers with knowledge and experience on issues related to the EU-Med region. Each proposal is evaluated by at least three referees specialised in the theme of the proposal. The evaluation is made according to the following list of criteria:

1. Scientific quality of the proposal, which relies on:

• Relevance of the topic to the economic policy issues of the Euro-Med Partnership

• Value added of the proposed topic to the existing knowledge

• The quality of the proposed methodology and its ability to address the issue efficiently

• Integration of the ‘policy oriented’ dimension and its relevance to South Med policy framework.

2. Other selection criteria

•     Degree of cooperation between teams (South and North or South)

•     Geographic coverage of the study, this includes:

1. number of countries covered

2. coverage of countries poorly studied (e.g. Algeria, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon)

3. comparison with other countries/regions

•     Overall Experience of the team of researchers.

Each of these criterion will have the same weight in the evaluation. For each proposal, an evaluation form is filled by each referee. These forms are sent to the Research Selection Group (RSG) along with the proposal.

2. The Selection of Proposals for funding is made by the Research Selection Group (RSG), which consists of the two Femise coordinators (ERF and IM) and five international experts specialized on the Mediterranean area working in multilateral institutions (like World Bank, IMF, European Commission, OECD, Arab Monetary Fund, BEI, ..etc). This committee is responsible of the final selection of the research proposals. The RSG studies all the proposals received as well as all the reports of evaluation and decides for every proposal, considering the objectives of the network FEMISE and the available budget, if:

• The request of financial support is accepted

• The request of financial support is accepted with a modification in the requested budget category (in case of global fee contracts) or a reduction in the requested amount (in case of fee-based contracts).

• The request of financial support is accepted on the condition of applying any modifications recommended by the RSG (widened geographic or temporal scope of the research, linkage with other proposals working on the same subject, modification of calendar, …). In case of acceptance of these modifications by the team leader, he/she should send a revised proposal. In the event the team leader does not accept or is unable to undertake these modifications, the request is rejected.

• The request of financial support is rejected.

3. FEMISE bureau will inform the team leader by email about the decision of the RSG. The reports of evaluation received by the referees of Femise and the written justification of the decision will be also sent. For the accepted proposals, the bureau will send the necessary contractual documents, general conditions and forms.

V. Research Quality and Dissemination

Inline with the new strategy to improve the quality of the research and broaden the dissemination, FEMISE is applying a new system of ex-post evaluation and publications incentives on the 2010 selected proposals. This system consists of:

(1) Submitted research reports will go through an ex-post evaluation process (‘Peer Review’) that will be done by FEMISE Scientific Committee. The comments, remarks, suggestions will be considered by the team (or they should clarify their points of view) before Femise publishes the research and release the final payment.

(2) Team Leaders will be asked to prepare a ‘Policy brief’ based on the research report. These Briefs will be disseminated by FEMISE through its Newsletter and website and will help promote FEMISE research reaching out to the Policy Makers and increase visibility.

(3) FEMISE will grant a Prize to the Teams of researcher that publish the FEMISE research report (or an article/paper based on it) in economic Journals. The prize will vary from  €1,000-€3,000 depending on the rank of the journal.