Abstract

Research managers and administrators working in partnership across institutions and borders is gaining in importance and visibility. Such team-building in support service organisation will likely become the norm for many research managers and administrators.

This presentation reflects on our experience of working collaboratively across three institutions within the CIVIS European University Alliance to deliver joint MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships support activities, on behalf of all CIVIS institutions.

The research support offices at University of Glasgow, Université Libre de Bruxelles and Sapienza Università di Roma formed a core group within the CIVIS European research grant offices to prepare and deliver support activities and materials, including: one MSCA-PF Info Day and three MSCA-PF Q&A sessions, an MSCA-PF supervisors database searchable by potential applicants across CIVIS institutions, and application development tools and guides for applicants.

CIVIS is a European Civic University formed by the alliance of 11 leading research higher education institutions across Europe: Aix-Marseille Université, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, University of Bucharest, Université libre de Bruxelles, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Sapienza Università di Roma, Stockholm University, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, University of Glasgow, the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg and the University of Lausanne.

Within CIVIS, there is a strong collaboration among colleagues from all member institutions’ research support/grant offices – supporting researchers within those institutions to engage with Horizon Europe.

Within the core group, we have made this collaboration an integral part of our daily work, for example by setting up a schedule of regular meetings to discuss, organise and plan our activities in a structured way.

There was very regular exchange within the wider group of colleagues, who supported by communicating and promoting the sessions and materials within their own institutions. Colleagues from the wider group supported the Info and Q&A sessions, helping to answer questions or presenting on specific topics such as Open Science.

We opened our programme of events with an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships Info Day, followed by a series of three applicant Q&A sessions. Sharing organisation among the core group, we followed a very collaborative approach.

Working with IT colleagues within the Alliance, we created an MSCA-PF supervisors database searchable by potential applicants across CIVIS institutions. All researchers working at a CIVIS institution can register for this database to indicate their interest in supervising a candidate, with the aim to match potential candidates and supervisors.

We developed application development tools and guides for applicants, explaining step-by-step how to submit the proposal, and guiding applicants through each section of the proposal template, how to answer, which points to address. This is a shared resource among all CIVIS member institutions, bringing together the best such individual resources previously used in each institution.

We will reflect on the value of providing collaboratively joint, common support activities across multiple institutions, with important take-away messages about how colleagues across institutions can work together to enhance the support offer available to their researchers and help their researchers to network.