The Fundación General CSIC has launched the first call for Proyectos Cero proposals for projects on threatened species, with the goal of promoting and funding the development of high-impact research projects aiming to protect and preserve threatened or endangered animal and plant species.
The Fundación General CSIC’s Proyectos Cero aim to promote outstanding, unique, world-class research taking a transdisciplinary perspective. The call for proposals is aimed at research groups with links to public R&D organisations in Spain. Calls are published annually and invite proposals on one of the Foundation’s four main strategic axes: Threatened species; Ageing, disability and illness; Human ecology and development; and, Frontiers.
In this call the Fundación General CSIC aims to promote the development of the Threatened species strategy line. Projects must fall into one of the following thematic areas:
- Conservation measures
- Genome preservation
- Studies on reproduction
- Studies on the socio-economic impact of protecting threatened species
- Species recovery
- Understanding and acceptance of species
The call has a budget of a million euros and is sponsored by specific contributions from the Agencia Estatal CSIC and Banco Santander, as well as drawing on the Fundación General CSIC’s own funds. Projects must have a defined execution period of between 1 and 3 years, and the funding available is between 200,000 and 300,000 euros. Funding may be requested for projects being run by a single institution or involving a number of institutions. However, although the call is open to all public R&D institutions, at least one of the research groups in each project must belong to the CSIC.
Applications may be submitted from 15 March onwards. The application and selection process will take place in two stages: during the first stage, which runs until 19 April, researchers will need to submit their expressions of interest; in the second stage, the groups whose expressions of interest have been short listed will be invited to submit a full proposal, including all the documentation required in the call’s specifications. This stage runs from 15 May to 15 June. The final decision will be announced on the Foundation’s web site on 31 July at the latest.
Proposals must take a unique and high-risk approach, making it difficult to fit in with conventional funding systems. Multidisciplinary methodological, conceptual or strategic approaches are essential and projects must have a strong innovative component. The evaluation will take into account the project’s excellence, quality and scientific/technical rigour, and its possible social, industrial, business and economic impact.
For more information, see www.fgcsic.es/convocatorias/especies_amenazadas.
