The concept of EuroMinScI is based on physics and chemistry of minerals with their behaviour studied by integrating experimental and computational methods. This intitial suggestion for a EUROCORES Programme can be traced back to discussions at an ESF workshop held in Rome, Italy in September 2001, attended by the chairs of a number of ESF networking activities in material sciences. A document has been drafted after a meeting of interested scientists from 10 countries in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on 28th October 2003. This meeting mandated a provisional executive committee to formulate the following scientific case for a EUROCORES Programme. This provisional executive committee consists of the following members, representing both experimental and computational mineralogy:
- Professor Michael Allan Carpenter, Dept. Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Professor Francesco Mauri, Laboratoire de Minéralogie-Cristallographie de Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
- Professor Bjoern Winkler, Abteilung Kristallographie, Institut fuer Mineralogie, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet, Frankfurt a.M., Germany (Chair of the EuroMinScI Scientific Committee)
- Dr. Sandro Scandolo, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy
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Funding Initiative for Research in Mineral Sciences
Following agreement with Funding Agencies from Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the European Science Foundation has launched a first Call for Proposals for research projects to be executed under the EUROCORES Programme European Mineral Sciences Initiative (EuroMinScI). The EuroMinScI Programme is expected to run for five years and includes national research funding and a European networking component.
The EuroMinScI programme is supported by Funding Agencies from 12 European countries: FWF, Austria; FWO and FNRS, Belgium; GACR, Czech Republic; ETF, Estonia; CNRS, France; DFG, Germany; MTA, Hungary; CNR, Italy; SAV, Slovakia; MEC, Spain; VR, Sweden; NERC, United Kingdom and by the European Science Foundation (ESF) under the EUROCORES Programmes, with support by the European Commission, DG Research (Sixth Framework Programme, contract ERAS-CT-2003-980409).
Selection Process
Each full proposal underwent international peer review refereeing, with the objective of receiving at least three referees’ reports per proposal. The referees were selected by the EuroMinScI Review Panel, with recourse to a pool of suggestions provided by the participating Funding Agencies. Wherever possible, referees were not used from the countries of a collaboration. Referees were subject to a code of conduct concerning "vested interest". For your information, a copy of the assessment form that was used is available here.
Project Leaders were given an opportunity in April/May 2005 to respond to referees’ comments. Such responses were for the use of the EuroMinScI Review Panel.
Each proposal and its referees’ comments were considered by the EuroMinScI Review Panel at their meeting on 24-25 May 2005, and ranked for consideration by the participating Funding Agencies.
The list of external referees who submitted an assessment for the EuroMinScI Full Proposals can be found here.
Project Launch Process
The nature of EUROCORES Programme is that Collaborative Research Projects are composed of several national individual projects. The participating research Funding Agencies take the ranked order of proposals recommended by the EuroMinScI Review Panel and, subject to their financial capabilities, agree on which proposals they are able to support. It is inevitable that a stage is reached below the top-most ranked proposals where funding becomes problematic for some individual projects. The ESF, in consultation with the members of the EuroMinScI Management Committee, negotiate adequate funding for the maximum number of top-ranked projects.
The participating research funding agencies have been informed of the rank order immediately after the Review Panel has met at the end of May 2005, and a Management Committee meeting was arranged in September 2005 to discuss the overall funding plan with respect to the recommended projects. The research phase of the EuroMinScI Programme started in January 2006 at a time when almost all national financial decisions made available to ESF and the relevant PIs.
