Frequently asked questions about personal research funding
- Can a doctoral candidate be from a different institution than the host institution?
Yes. - Do the names of doctoral candidates and master’s students have to appear in the application?
Yes, it is necessary in order to assess the connection of their research with the personal research funding (PUT) project. - If the research project leader goes on parental leave or is called for military service in the Defence Forces, what will become of the PUT research project?
At the moment, this issue is not regulated in the PUT procedures. The regulation will be developed as soon as possible. - Technical and auxiliary staff – can they be replaced during the research project?
Yes, they can – the names of technical and auxiliary staff do not have to appear in the application. - Acquisitions – is it possible to purchase expensive equipment partly with the PUT funds and partly with other sources?
Yes, it is. The conditions prescribe that the equipment has to be directly related to the implementation of the PUT research project and the acquisition costs of fixed assets (according to specifications prescribed by the host institution) constitute up to 10% of the direct costs of the research project. - In clause 10.2.4 of the PUT procedures, there is a reference to the subcontracting of services, which is directly related to the calculation of the sum allocated for general expenses. On what basis can the applicant differentiate between the costs that constitute subcontracting services and the ones that do not? Does the entry on subcontracting require detailed descriptions?
The Estonian Research Council will amend clause 10.2.4 of the PUT procedures, phrasing it as “subcontracting research and development services”. - If the research project leader has an employment contract for working full-time (either full-time as a lecturer or a research employee or half-time as a lecturer and half-time as a research employee, altogether full-time) prior to the allocation of funding, but the contract has not been entered into for the purpose of carrying out a PUT research project, is it necessary to amend the employment contract after receiving the grant?
The employment contract does not have to be amended. - Which is primary, working full-time at the host institution or working full-time to carry out the research project?
Working at the host institution. - Does the employment contract have to reflect official duties related to the implementation of the research project and the title of the project?
It does not, but it may. - Can an employee who has a full-time employment contract, but whose official duties also include those of a lecturer, be a research project leader as the exemption mentioned in clause 8.1.2?
An employee of this kind can be the leader of a PUT research project, if all the requirements in clause 8 of the PUT procedures are met. - Does calculating the total working hours of research employees and connecting it only to the funding of research employees from the research grant mean that only research employees can receive payment from the research grant funds?
Pursuant to clause 16.1.2 in the PUT procedures, research employees are defined as the PUT research project leader, investigators and a doctoral candidate in case an employment contract of an early-stage researcher has been entered into with the doctoral candidate. This also applies to cases where a research project leader’s or investigator’s employment contract includes the official duties of a professor, for example. Technical and auxiliary staff and scholarship-receiving master’s students and doctoral candidates are not research employees according to clause 16.1.2 of the PUT procedures and will not count in the calculation of equivalents. - Does clause 16.1.2 in the PUT procedures mean that a lecturer who has a full-time employment contract for performing the duties of a lecturer, but who has received a single additional payment for participating in carrying out a PUT research project, will not count in the calculation of an equivalent?
Pursuant to clause 16.1.2 in the PUT procedures, research employees are defined as the PUT research project leader, investigators and a doctoral candidate, in case an employment contract of an early-stage researcher has been entered into with the doctoral candidate. This also applies to cases where a research project leader’s or investigator’s employment contract includes the official duties of a professor, for example. Technical and auxiliary staff and scholarship-receiving master’s students and doctoral candidates are not research employees according to clause 16.1.2 of the PUT procedures and will not count in the calculation of equivalents. - Do research employees who do not work full-time need to keep a time calculation table?
This kind of requirement has not been implemented. - Can the PUT research project leader come from outside Estonia?
Yes, if an employment contract has been entered into with an Estonian research and development institution. The PUT procedures do not prescribe a citizenship requirement. - The PUT procedures prescribe that, as an exception, the PUT research project leader and investigator can concurrently be the leader of a post-doctoral funding project. What does this mean?
This regulation has been added to the PUT procedures with forward-looking intentions; the scheme of post-doctoral funding project grants will not be implemented before 2014. - Can a start-up project leader be the leader of a project funded in the framework of the Estonian Language and Cultural Memory programme?
Yes. Pursuant to clauses 8.2.3 and 8.3, a start-up project leader cannot be or have been the leader or principal investigator of a research topic target financed by a research and development institution, the holder of a grant funded by the Estonian Science Foundation, the leader or investigator of a personal research funding project or the leader or principal investigator of an institutional research funding topic. - If the start-up project leader is a woman from abroad, who has since receiving her degree in Germany in 2001 been on parental leave twice and neither of the times in Estonia, what would constitute acceptable evidence of the parental leave?
The evidence is a description of the circumstances written by the applicant, to which any document that is deemed necessary by the applicant can be enclosed. The Estonian Research Council retains the right to request additional documents from the applicant.