GROW is a programme for supporting the international exchange of doctoral candidates from the USA jointly offered by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and partner organisations worldwide. It offers doctoral candidates who are funded by the NSF in the framework of its Graduate Research Fellows Program (GRFP) to make research stays at scientific institutions in partner countries. The FWF in 2014 has joined this cooperation. FWF finances the salary of US doctoral candidates for the time of their research stay in Austria. All scientists who have received FWF project funding (including SFB project part leaders and DK faculty members) in the last 5 years (since January 2012).

Programme aim
Research stays of US doctoral candidates at Austrian research institutes

Addressees

• US doctoral candidates: doctoral candidates “on reserve” participating in the NSF the GRFP programme. Master students and doctoral candidates “on tenure” are not eligible for applying in the framework of the cooperation with FWF.
• Hosts: scientists at Austrian research institutes who have been awarded an FWF grant in the years 2011 or later (incl. SFB project part leaders and DK faculty members). For details, cf. the “FWF project finder”: http://pf.fwf.ac.at/en/research-in-practice/project-finder (“grant year” 2012 or later)

Duration
10 – 12 months

Eligible costs
salary for doctoral candidates (30 hrs according to FWF personnel costs)

Application by US doctoral candidates
application at NSF, following the GROW guidelines (cf. here)

Application by hosts
application at FWF (as hard copy and CD-Rom), including the following documents:

• FWF application form
• Form “programme specific data for proposal in the framework of the GROW programme”
• Abstracts for FWF’s public relation work in German and English (max. 450 words or 3000 characters)
• Proposal written in English, according to FWF guidelines, including the following points:
  
  • Academic profile of the doctoral candidates (education, specialization, research experience, important publications, etc.) – max. 1 page
  • Planned research activity in Austria – max. 2 pages
  • Added-value for Austria as a research location – max. 1 page
  • CV (max. 3 pages) and list of publications of the doctoral candidate

Review process/decision

• NSF and FWF will inform each other of the submitted proposals
• NSF reviews the proposal submitted by the doctoral candidate
• FWF will obtain written statements by two members of the FWF Board in charge for the respective scientific discipline
• NSF will make a funding recommendation. The FWF Board will take a funding decision on the basis of the NSF recommendation and the other information obtained