The theme of the new competition "oriented fundamental scientific research on Actual Interdisciplinary Topics" RFBR, unfortunately, no longer surprises: it is a logical continuation of the policy of the current management of the fund.
On February 29, 2016, the Russian government issued Decree No. 352 providing for the reorganization of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation (RHF) by joining the RHF to the RFBR. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich commented on the order, pointing out that the form of integration was proposed based on the ratio of funding between funds, and the purpose of the association is to increase the volume of interdisciplinary research, the possibility of obtaining new knowledge at the intersection of sciences, as well as reducing administrative costs.
Representatives of the humanities, having learned about the government’s order, expressed concern that the accession of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation to the RFBR would lead to the fact that some activities specific to the humanities (for example, the publication of multi-volume dictionaries) would be without the support of the joint fund. It seems, however, that the continuation of the policy of the current leadership of the RFBR poses a threat not only to the humanities.
One can look at the accession of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in different ways, but there is no doubt about one thing: the merging of funds will contribute to "increasing the volume of interdisciplinary research", the importance of which has recently been spoken about with perseverance worthy of better application at the very top, as if interdisciplinarity is panacea, and ticking "interdisciplinary" next to the name of the study automatically leads to its high relevance and effectiveness.
Even stranger is the one-year youth competition "mol_ev_a" ("Eureka! Idea"), in which "young scientists or small youth teams (up to 5 people) could take part, offering non-standard, original ideas that contribute to the development or creation of new critical technologies in within the rubricator of the competition". After such competitions of fruitful debut ideas for a million rubles a year, it is really time to think about improving the quality of expertise. Moreover, there are even more exciting plans ahead: in the decision of the Council of the RFBR dated December 10, 2015, among the main activities of the foundation in 2016, it is written: "Consideration of the possibility of supporting scientific research of talented youth on the basis of" cross-cutting "competitions along the chain" schoolchild - student - postgraduate student - Researcher"".
In principle, there are no grounds to object to holding thematic, youth and other specialized competitions. The question is the priorities and the quality organization of the examination. However, in conditions when the Russian Science Foundation exists, which is able to support the strongest research teams with grants that are solid by Russian standards, when applied research in priority areas is supported within the framework of the Federal Target Program for Research and Development, within the programs of the Bortnik Foundation (where there are also competitions for students and graduate students, and annual competitions of one million rubles), etc., when, finally, there are grants and scholarships of the President of Russia for young scientists, the RFBR should, it would seem, do what it was created for: first of all, support initiative projects in the fields of science.
And there are no reasons preventing projects from receiving support within their framework, even in the field of "methods for searching and analyzing scientific, technical and technological solutions in local and global information resources that meet the needs of the Russian economy, using methods of inductive machine learning, automatic classification and clustering of large volumes of data", even in the field of "light-emitting structures (sources of coherent radiation) based on organic semiconductors and liquid crystals".
But no, the current leadership of the RFBR is pursuing an exclusively opportunistic and fussy policy (of course, constantly keeping in mind its own interests and priorities). Youth support? Now we will develop a line of competitions for participants up to the school bench! Current trends and technologies? Now we will allocate and finance! And all this feast of the human spirit is taking place with a constant reduction in the real financial content of basic "a" grants, which now, taking into account inflation, are much lighter than 7-8 years ago.
In general, in my opinion, it is wrong to say that the humanities have serious reasons to fear the results of the merger of the RFBR and the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, and representatives of the natural sciences have nothing to fear. Because with the continuation of the current policy of the leadership of the RFBR, in a few years the RFBR will cease to be a normal scientific fund and turn into a "split office", in which, under the flag of current state priorities, projects of "their own and necessary people" are heavily funded.
In fact, it remains to take only one serious step towards this: to move from highlighting topics close to representatives of the RFBR leadership with increased funding for projects (under the pretext of their relevance and interdisciplinarity) to formulating particularly important specific research topics with even higher funding. As it was in the megalots of the Ministry of Education and Science at the end of the previous decade. And for mass grants "to support the pants" it will be possible to allocate 15-20% of the fund's budget. And it does not matter that the money will be cheap: as one of the representatives of the RFBR leadership said at one meeting, this is not money, this is prestige, a kind of quality mark...
Evgeny Onishchenko
If you would like to enter Personal Area information system RFBR - IS RGNF just enter the username that you previously entered to register your profile. Enter the username also in the "username" field. Then enter your own password. Enter the password in the field labeled "password". Click on the field labeled "Login". And with the correct entry of your own registration data, the login will be successful. When something is entered incorrectly or just one character is mistaken, the system will tell you that the data was entered incorrectly, and you will be able to enter your own data again and try to log in again to your personal account.
It doesn't matter if you just forgot your password. For such a case, the system has provided one step. You simply enter a username and a field called "remind password". And after such an action, a letter comes to your mail, with the help of which you can recover your own password.
Registration in the personal account of the RSHF IP system
For those who have not been previously registered in the system, registration is offered.
Registration steps:
1. A field called "username" will be highlighted. In this paragraph, you are required to enter an email address (the role of your email address is twofold: on the one hand, it will be the login itself, each time you log in, on the other hand, letters will be sent to it, and in case of password loss as well) .
2. You will see a field called "password". In this place, you should enter a strong password with up to 25 characters.
The Russian Humanitarian Foundation was established by the Government Decree Russian Federation September 8, 1994 in order to state support the development of the humanities, the multiplication of accumulated scientific knowledge and their wide dissemination in society, the revival of the traditions of the domestic humanities. The activities of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation are managed by the Council of the Foundation.
The Russian Humanitarian Foundation is a self-governing state organization, the funds of which are formed at the expense of state appropriations and borrowed funds. The Foundation supports scientific research in all areas of humanitarian knowledge: philosophy, political science, sociology, science of science, law, economics, history, archeology, ethnology, art history, philology, psychology, pedagogy, and complex problems of human study.
Support for scientific projects is carried out on the basis of a thorough multi-stage independent scientific expertise. The expert system of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation consists of six expert councils:
- philosophy, sociology, political science, law, science of science
- problems of a comprehensive study of man
- history, archeology and ethnology
- economy
- philology and art criticism
- information systems and telecommunications.
-research projects;
The Foundation supports research projects on the humanities and social sciences in directions 01 (history; archeology; ethnography), 02 (economics), 03 (philosophy; sociology; jurisprudence; political science; social history of science and technology; science of science), 04 (philology; art criticism), 06 (comprehensive study of man; psychology; pedagogy; social problems medicine and human ecology).
- publishing projects;
The Foundation supports scientific publications presenting the results of research in areas 01, 02, 03, 04, 06.
-projects for the development of scientific telecommunications and the material and technical base of humanitarian scientific research;
The Foundation accepts for consideration applications for the development of scientific telecommunications and the material and technical base of scientific research in directions 01, 02, 03, 04, 06.
-projects for organizing Russian and international scientific events on the territory of the Russian Federation;
Applications for holding scientific events (conferences, symposiums, meetings, permanent scientific seminars, round tables, etc.) on the territory of the Russian Federation are accepted for consideration. topical issues sciences, in directions 01, 02, 03, 04, 06.
-projects for the participation of Russian scientists in scientific events abroad;
Individual applications for the participation of Russian scientists in scientific events abroad in directions 01, 02, 03, 04, 06 are accepted for consideration.
- projects for the organization of expeditions, field, experimental laboratory research and scientific restoration work;
The Fund supports projects for the organization of expeditionary, field, experimental laboratory research and scientific restoration work, including statistical surveys, modeling of socio-economic processes, development of experimental methods, scientific restoration work in areas 01, 02, 03, 04, 06.
-projects of creation of information systems.
The Foundation supports projects to create information systems (IS) for conducting humanitarian research in the fields of knowledge 01, 02, 03, 04, 06.
Since 1998, in order to consolidate the efforts of central and regional bodies to support science, regional competitions have been held.
The Foundation has a unique database on humanities research in Russia, conducts scientific research, is the founder of the journals "Bulletin of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund" and "Science Studies", regularly publishes the "Catalogue of Books Published with the Support of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund".
The material was prepared according to the official website
In this article, we will describe in detail all the information about the project. My first RFBR grant 2020. The Russian Foundation for Basic Research (hereinafter referred to as RFBR) was established in 1992 in accordance with a presidential decree. The RFBR was created on the initiative of the most respected scientists of our country, the purpose of the creation is the selection on a competitive basis of scientific projects created by scientists for consideration, and their further financial and organizational support.
One of the directions of the Foundation's work is assistance to research of young employees. For this purpose, the implementation and financial support of several competitions for young representatives of science were implemented, the most popular of these competitions is “My First Grant”. A specialist under 35 years of age engaged in fundamental research, who has at least one published publication in a journal in the RSCI or WoS database, has the right to submit an application for an initial grant, count on financial support for his own project. The main requirements for the contestants and project content, the detailed application procedure will be presented below in this material.
1. Competition tasks for "My first RFBR grant 2020"
2. How much funding can be obtained?
The project has been implemented for two years, and during the last such event, the “year” was not considered a calendar year, but was counted from the moment the results of the competition were approved. Every year, designers are given half a million rubles to implement their ideas.
3. Requirements for applicants and project content.
The application is submitted by one or more individuals (maximum - 5 people). In the latter case, it is necessary to allocate a project manager, other individuals will be the Contractors.
It is impossible for the team to include:
1. Employees of the organization where the Head is listed, when he reports to them by position (for example, the head of the laboratory in which the Head works).
2. Participants over 35 years of age (at the time of the date specified in the competition documentation by the Foundation - as a rule, this is the date of summing up the competitive results).
3. Persons already participating in another application for the same competition. Please note: if one person participates in any capacity (Executor or Manager) in 2 applications, then both of them do not pass a formal examination of compliance with the competitive conditions and are removed from further consideration on the merits!
Minimum requirements for a Project Manager:
1. Higher education. This is one of the few grants that does not require an Executive degree. It is quite common for applications for this project when there are young candidates of science in the team, although the Head does not yet have such a title.
2. Lack of leadership experience in relation to RFBR grants or RFHF projects. The project team, however, may include Executors who previously or currently manage the grants of these funds, but the Leader cannot have the above experience, because this is at odds with the competition tasks.
3. The presence of at least one material on the claimed field in the journal included in the information base of the RSCI (or WoS). These are the minimum requirements for being able to apply, however, one of the evaluation criteria will be the level of scientific groundwork, which is confirmed by publications. Thus, often one article on the subject may not be enough to obtain a good peer review for this criterion. If possible, publish several papers on a similar or related topic before submitting a grant request. If there is a conviction that the application will receive good marks according to other criteria, then you can take part in the competition with one material.
A Project can be applied for when the Project itself:
1. Is a fundamental scientific research; during the examination, the fundamental nature of the study is assessed. It is important to keep in mind that project support in the absence of fundamentality is not carried out (even if the Project could receive high marks according to other criteria).
2. Corresponds to any of the directions:
3. Differs in content from projects supported by the Foundation or other institutions; does not coincide with the planned work, the financing of which is carried out from federal resources.
4. Application period.
The exact date and even the month of submitting applications for a grant are not known and change annually, so you need to follow the news about competitions on the resource //www.rfbr.ru/rffi/ru/contest
5. Registration in the CIAS (Complex Information Analytical System) of the Foundation
The entire chain of technological steps from the submission of applications to the publication of the results of the competition is carried out in digital form and using the Fund's CIAS.
Before submitting an application, all Project participants need to register with KIAS by clicking on the link: //kias.rfbr.ru/reg/index.php .
In KIAS, potential participants need to register on their own, because they need to fill in information about themselves and receive a code via SMS to their personal number cell phone and enter it immediately on the site as confirmation.
For registration, the following information is required: full name, date of birth, information about citizenship and the right to work, education, academic degree, academic degree and title, pension certificate number (SNILS), passport data, personal cell number, E- mail. Re-registration for one SNILS is not allowed. At the same time, registration without a SNILS number is not performed, that is, if the participant does not yet have SNILS, it must be issued before registration.
Next, click the "Confirm number for SMS" button. After that, an SMS with a six-digit number - a password - will be sent to the number you specified. Enter this password and after entering it, click the "Confirm" button. After completing these steps, an inscription will appear opposite the phone number: "Confirmed".
Registration of "Consent"
In order to submit a grant application, all participants must also approve the Consent to verify documents in electronic form signed in the CIAS in the usual digital signature, equivalent to paper documents, that is, to identify yourself.
The digital consent form will appear automatically in your personal account after completing the registration procedure and confirming the phone number for SMS messages. To do this, in the "Personal data" section, click the "Give consent" button, follow the links "How to obtain consent" and " Step-by-step instruction". You will be offered a method of certification: in the organization where you work, or at the notary (consul), the Consent form for printing will depend on the choice of the option. The first is possible only in the organization with which you are in an employment relationship, and the second is for all Users, including those who are not working or working abroad. After choosing the method, you will be able to print the Consent and certify it in the organization (usually in the personnel department) or at the notary/consul. Do not sign it in advance, as an employee of the organization or a notary / consul certifies that the Consent was signed by you in their presence.
Further, the certified Consent must be sent to the RFBR by a regular (not valuable) letter to the address: Russia, 119334, Moscow, Leninsky Prospekt, d. 32a, RFBR. In addition to the addresses of the sender and recipient, the following must be present on the envelope: "Consent of the CIAS RFBR User to use the ES." The Fund does not accept registered and valuable letters.
After receiving a paper signed copy of the Consent, the Foundation checks that the data in the Consent match the information in the Personal Card. In case of compliance, a message will appear in the Personal Account about the completion of the Consent.
The procedure usually takes 1-2 business days after the Foundation receives the letter. If the period for submitting applications is coming to an end, use the services of a courier by paying for expedited delivery of the letter.
Submission of a project application
So, if you have decided which project you want to support, which team will implement it, registered all employees in the CIAS, sent an electronic consent, then it's time to start filling out the forms in the digital application.
Be sure to familiarize yourself with which forms and fields you need to fill out in them, pay attention to the fields marked with red asterisks, which are mandatory.
Usually four forms are filled out: Information about the project (including filling in English), Information about the individual who proposed the Project, Information about the Organization, project content.
Form 1. Project Information (and Form 1en. Project Information in English).
This includes the following: the name of the Project, the numeric code of the area of expertise, the main and additional codes of the scientific subject for the category of the Foundation, keywords, a project abstract and some other information that is filled in automatically based on the completion of other forms or conditions required to receive a grant.
All fields, including the title, are editable until the moment the application is certified with a signature, so many applicants write/edit the abstract last, so that it fully matches the content of other sections.
The Foundation sends the project for examination first of all to those experts whose specialization coincides with the main code of the discipline chosen by you according to the RFBR classifier. In addition, during the examination of projects, the compliance of the project topic with the main code of the classifier is taken into account, so take the choice of discipline seriously.
Some fields contain requirements for volume and content, for example, "Abstract" (maximum half a page, including briefly - relevance, significance level and scientific novelty of the study; expected results, their significance), "Keywords" (both single words and phrases are defined , denoting the project content as fully as possible: maximum 15 pieces, in lowercase characters, list separated by commas). Stick to them, be sure to follow the requirements. Let's say "additive technologies" would count as one keyword.
If the Foundation provides assistance to the project, the name and project abstract will be posted on the Foundation's resource, so if you claim a patentable research, then do not disclose its entire essence in the abstract.
Form 2. Information about the team member who applied for the Competition
Behind the creation of an application and an invitation individuals such information is entered into the project automatically based on the data from the personal card of all project members.
The data in the personal account must be filled in carefully, since it is they who will then be displayed in the form: participation in other projects, the scope of scientific research (keywords and codes for the RFBR category), achievements in the field of science (awards, grants, etc.). It is better if the scope of scientific research will fully or partially coincide with the topic of the submitted project.
Also, feel free to write about all the prizes and awards you have received in scientific activity, even if it's a small bonus given to employees in your organization. Any such information can create a positive opinion of the expert about the project participants and increase the expert assessment in terms of the possibility of completing the Project in the same composition at the stated time and in terms of the parameter describing the characteristics of the Project participants.
Form 3. Data on the institution providing conditions for the implementation of design work (Organization)
If your organization conducts research work and is registered with the Foundation, then a fully automatic filling is carried out when choosing an institution.
Form 4. Project content
Undoubtedly, this is the most important part of your application, because it is here that the description of the problem, the relevance of the study, the analysis of the current stage of research, project tasks and goals, the novelty of the research from the point of view of science, the proposed methods and methods, the expected results, their importance from the standpoint of science and applied use, work plan, scientific background, publications of the Project participants, most closely related to it.
Before you start filling out these sections, think in detail what your scientific idea is, what you need to implement it, what methods will be used, what results they will allow you to get, what each grant participant will do in each year of its implementation. After there are no “white spots” left in your application for yourself, you can start writing wording for entering data into forms.
The main principle of filling applications is understandability to the reader-expert. Of course, the expert will be a specialist in the same discipline as the proposed project, but there is no guarantee that he is fluent in your particular subject. In addition, there is no certainty that the expert will carefully and thoughtfully read your application, with a desire to understand some non-obvious wording. So try not to build complex sentences, and be sure to methodically and consistently describe everything that is planned to be done. Don't be afraid to repeat yourself! The expert will not evaluate the text rich in synonyms, and the repeated phrases on the subject of the project allow him to understand that it is still about the same subject. In addition, when writing the “relevance” and “novelty” sections, you can repeat not just an idea, but even a number of sentences.
In the section "Proposed approaches and methods, and their rationale for the implementation of the purpose and objectives of the research", a detailed description of the proposed research is required. This is the case when it is better to write everything thoroughly. As specified in the tender documentation, in this section “the form of presentation should enable the expert to assess the novelty of the Project idea, the compliance of research approaches and methods with the goals and objectives set, and the reliability of the results obtained.” For example, if the work is experimental, describe in detail how and how many samples will be made, what testing and research methods will be used, why each of the methods is used. Check with the goals and objectives of the study and adjust them if the proposed approaches and methods do not solve any problems. Be sure to reflect if any method is copyrighted, or a new methodology will be developed during the project.
Registration of application for participation
Having filled in all the fields, the Head must sign the Application. To do this, you need to “send” an application to the CIAS and confirm your action by entering the code sent via SMS. After that, the registration number is assigned to the application automatically.
After signing, the only document sent to the Fund is the Declaration, after signing it appears in the personal account immediately. The Declaration must be signed by the Project Managers and Organizations (in the latter case, as an alternative, by a person with the necessary authority). The organization, in addition to the signature, puts a seal, the project Manager certifies his signature by the responsible person of the organization or in a notarial form.
Declaration must be sent RFBR by regular mail to the address: Russia, 119334, Moscow, Leninsky Prospekt, 32a. As an alternative, leave a letter in the RFBR mailbox, fixed in the 2nd entrance of the house with the same address (10:00-17:00, except weekends).
In addition to the required postal information, the envelope must contain the following phrase: RFBR Competition, Project No.,
Contest code.
6. What do they pay attention to when performing a design review?
In fact, young specialists receive two reviews each with the following items filled in by experts:
— fundamental nature of the research;
– the relevance of the designated topic of scientific research;
- the level of the existing scientific groundwork and the characteristics of the participants in the work;
— correspondence of the level of study and expected project results to the international level;
— the degree of implementation of the proposed project;
— a qualitative representation of the current stage of the problem;
- the novelty of the proposed research;
— compliance of the proposed approaches and methods of planned research with the set design tasks and goals;
- expert review.
7. Competition results
The RFBR supports a certain number of applications, based on the funds available for this purpose; projects are supported based on the total number of points scored by the application for all evaluated positions. In this regard, projects that received a low rating from one of the reviewers are sometimes supported, and sometimes projects that receive both positive ratings are not supported. According to the Fund, "the task of the expert council is to single out the 'best' of the 'good' in such a situation."
Project managers who have submitted applications are notified of project support (or, on the contrary, of refusal) by means of a notification in the CIAS Personal Account. Expert reviews will also be reflected there.
Also, the results of the competition (with a list of all supported applications) will be posted on the RFBR resource: //www.rfbr.ru/rffi/ru/classifieds (Announcements section).
If the project was supported
You will be asked to sign a trilateral agreement (RFBR-Institution-Grantee) in the near future (usually a month from the date of summarizing).
Read all the terms of the contract, and also re-read the documentation for the competition. Mark for yourself the points necessary for execution. In the last competition, these were: the requirement of all participants of the Project to make reports reflecting the results of the project at scientific events; the obligation to submit at least one article to a peer-reviewed publication in the first year of the project (in this case, the project leader must be one of the authors of at least one article), and before submitting the final project report, to place at least one article with the results of the research in a journal located in the WoS information base or RSCI (similarly, for at least one article, one of the authors must be a project leader), and place at least one article co-authored with a project leader in a peer-reviewed publication.
The team is required to submit annual reports. Thus, there will be two reports in total: interim and final. Both reports are being evaluated by RFBR experts.
If the project is not supported
Do not despair! Carefully study the reviews of experts, work out their comments. You have a great chance to write a more meaningful application next time, where you will take into account all the mistakes and comments, and your chances of getting the Fund's support next year increase significantly!
If there are any questions
You can always use the CIAS RFBR user support service by reading current issues: //support.rfbr.ru/?p=actual, frequently asked questions: //support.rfbr.ru/?p=faq or ask your own question: / /support.rfbr.ru/?p=ask
The support service considers requests from 9:00 to 18:00 (Moscow time) on business days.
Conclusion
The editors adhere to the following position: those who do not submit applications cannot count on receiving projects. Therefore, if your project is a fundamental research, has novelty from the point of view of science, and employees and the manager satisfy the competitive conditions, feel free to write an application for My first RFBR grant 2020! At best, you will receive financial and organizational support for your research, and at worst, expert reviews that will help you improve your application for the next competition.
In addition, please note that with each announcement of the competition, the Foundation changes some conditions for obtaining and implementing a grant. Carefully read each time the tender documentation on the official website of the RFBR. This article was written according to the latest competition.
