Odysseus program 2010

Tenured research professorships and tenure-track positions for research associates, with project funding from the Odysseus program of the Flemish Government

Openings

The K.U.Leuven has a limited number of openings for:

• tenured research professorships: Internationally recognised researchers with an established foreign career (type I)
• tenure-track research associates with a term of five years: Researchers with the potential to become internationally recognised (type II)

Top level researchers from all disciplines are invited to apply.

Funding

The Odysseus research funding will be handled through the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and will be granted for a period of five years. Funding is for:

• type I is between 0.4 and 1.5 million euro per year (from 2 to 7.5 million euro in total)
• type II it is between 0.1 and 0.2 million euro per year (from 0.5 to 1 million euro in total).

Eligibility

K.U.Leuven is looking for top level researchers:

• Type I applicants must be outstanding scholars in their field with a high international reputation.
• Type II applicants must have the potential to evolve into this kind of quality level during their term.

Both type I and type II applicants must have had or still have an academic or other research position at the postdoctoral level or higher outside Belgium for at minimum three years in the last five years. There must be a position outside Belgium at least 1 year ago (December 1st, 2009).

Submission procedure

Please contact the relevant department or research director as soon as possible, to show your interest.

• Pol Ghesquière – Pol.Ghesquiere@ped.kuleuven.be for candidates from the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Arnout Ceulemans – arnout.ceulemans@chem.kuleuven.be for candidates from Science and Technology
• Karin Sipido – Karin.Sipido@med.kuleuven.be for candidates from the Biomedical Sciences

1. The application form is to be submitted no later than September 16th, to:

Nele Beutels of the K.U.Leuven Research Coordination Office – nele.beutels@doc.kuleuven.be (copy to peter.marynen@doc.kuleuven.be).

2. A first internal selection will take place at September 22nd. After that date, the local co-promoter of those selected should fill out part D of the application form (embedding of the team in the host institution).
3. Depending one’s vita, the project outline and the advice from the local co-promotor, a shortlist will be made by the K.U.Leuven of applicants who will be invited to apply for a position by the end of October 2010 and for the Odysseus funding through the FWO by December 1 of 2010.
4. The decisions on appointments and funding will be taken by the K.U.Leuven in June 2011, based on an evaluation by an international committee of referees, organized by the university for the positions and by the FWO for the funding. Both the positions and the funding can start from October 2011 on.
   The most important criteria for selection are the quality of the candidate’s previous research and future research plans, and the fit or complementariness to research programs at the K.U.Leuven.

More information

• More information concerning the Odysseus funding and how applicants will be handled by the FWO can be found on the FWO-website.
• For K.U.Leuven researchers one may want to contact, more information on the Odysseus procedure is available on the internal website.