Call for applications for Visiting Scholarships at Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at University of California (CITRIS)

1. Partnership agreement between the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (DASTI) and CITRIS at University of California

With the aim of boosting scientific collaboration between Denmark and California, DASTI has entered into a partnership agreement with the innovative Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) within the University of California. CITRIS encompasses faculty at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced and a wide variety of research in IT, health care, energy, infrastructure, services science etc. Please visit the CITRIS-website for further information: www.citris-uc.org.

As part of the partnership agreement DASTI invites PhD students, faculty members, and scientists employed by a Danish University or a Danish public research institution to submit applications for visiting scholarships at CITRIS at University of California.

1.1 Application deadline

Applications must be submitted no later than:
Monday March 30th 2009 at 1 pm.

2. Grant type

As part of the partnership agreement DASTI has acquired “Visiting Slots” for a total duration of 24 months. DASTI thereby invites eligible candidates to submit applications for:

• Visiting scholarships of a duration of 3-6 months each

The slotting fee paid by DASTI will only cover the University of California fees for visiting researchers. Visiting Scholars from Denmark will accordingly fund their own lodging and living expenses, and assume responsibility for their own salaries, benefits, and health insurance.

In addition to the Visiting Scholarship, a Visiting Scholar has the possibility of receiving a prepaid travel grant of DKK 10.000 (c.f. the application form at the bottom of this page). The travel grant covers expenses related to travel in connection to the visit at CITRIS. It is stressed that the travel grant is prepaid.

3. Assessment criteria

The present call is open to PhD students, faculty members, and scientists employed by a Danish university or a Danish public research institution.

In the assessment of applications importance will be attached to:

• The scientific focus of the research project.
• The quality of the research project.
• The value added by collaborating with a counterpart from the University of California.
• Potential for future scientific collaboration.
• The applicant’s experience in international scientific collaboration.
• Given CITRIS’s core mission, the identification of the “societal pull” of the collaboration.
• Given that CITRIS also has a mission of long-term industrial development, the identification of potential industrial collaborators for long-term impact of the research.

4. Requirements and procedures for applications

Applications must be submitted in English and applicants must use the application form for the present call (bottom of this page) with the following appendices:

• CV of the applicant and the collaboration partner at the University of California.
• Expression of interest from a member of the CITRIS research group who will act as official host at University of California.

Only incited appendices will be accepted.

The application must be co-signed by the head of department at the Danish university or research institution.
Each Visiting Scholar must have a member of the CITRIS research group who will act as official host at the University of California. In general, the host will be a member of the CITRIS research group with whom the visitor wishes to collaborate. Although visitors may change their CITRIS host at any time (subject to the agreement of all parties concerned) an initial host must be identified and appointed by CITRIS prior to the visitor’s arrival.

The identification of the host is done by Director Gary Baldwin. The identification is based on the applicant’s suggestions. If the applicant has no suggestions for a potential host, Director Gary Baldwin can be contacted, and he will assist in identifying a possible host.
Applicants are not to contact professors themselves to find a host, unless collaboration with the potential host already exists.
It should be underlined that the purpose of the partnership program is research collaboration, not education or training for the Danish visitor. In particular, a CITRIS faculty host is intended to be a research partner of the visitor, and is not expected to provide basic education or training in how to conduct research. A visitor’s degree of participation in the program is expected to be commensurate with that of CITRIS’ core researchers.

The applications will be reviewed by an appointed evaluation committee at CITRIS at University of California and granted by DASTI.

Of the acquired 24 months, up to 12 months are reserved for PhD students. Depending on the quality of the applications received, DASTI and the evaluation committee at CITRIS reserve the right to allocate only parts of the Visiting Slots. With regards to an optimal use of the acquired 24 months, DASTI and the evaluation committee at CITRIS furthermore reserve the right to grant Visiting Scholarships of shorter duration than initially applied for. This, however, will only be done in dialogue with the applicants in question.
Upon completion of the visit at CITRIS, the applicant is required to submit a debriefing report to DASTI.

Since the travel grant is prepaid, the Visiting Scholar is furthermore obligated to document all expenses related to the travel of the visit by sending in the original appendices, hereunder the plane tickets. Unused funding must be returned to DASTI.

5. Submission of applications

Applications must be submitted:

• On paper, as one unstapled original with original signature and
• Electronically, as one continuous pdf-file by e-mail

Applications should be sent to:

Forsknings- og Innovationsstyrelsen
Att.: Are Straume
Bredgade 40
1260 København K

E-mail:

Applications must reach DASTI (Forsknings- og Innovationsstyrelsen) no later than the time and date specified on the cover of this call for applications.

Applications may be rejected without substantive consideration if the deadlines and requirements set out in this call for applications are not met or if the application form is not completed correctly.
No later than three weeks after receiving the application, the main applicant will receive an acknowledgement with a schedule for the processing of the application.

Further information

The Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Are Straume, Head of Section, tel.: +45 3544 6310, e-mail:

Science and Technology attaché at Innovation Center Denmark in Silicon Valley, Lars Beer Nielsen, e-mail

CITRIS at University of California, Gary Baldwin, Director, Special Projects of CITRIS, e-mail

• Download the application form