ANION Visiting Fellows Programme

ANION welcomes applications that:

• Support research visits by outstanding international researchers to ANION-affiliated research groups in the Netherlands, with a clear benefit to ANION through new connections, collaborations and research opportunities.
• Promote collaboration and cross-fertilisation between ANION-affiliated research groups, involving at least two applicants from different groups.
• Contribute to research within an ANION work package and demonstrate clear relevance to its objectives.

Visits by outstanding, foreign researchers with a minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 3 months are supported. Longer-term visits are normally preferred over short‐term visits. Visits of up to 6 months may be considered in exceptional cases. Grants can be requested to help to meet the costs of subsistence and travel. The following rates apply:  

Living costs: €600 per week for the first four weeks. For any missions longer than four weeks, after the first four weeks the support is reduced to €400 per week. For visits with durations that are not a perfect integer number of weeks, the grant is rounded to the nearest whole week based on working days (Monday–Friday). For example, a visiting fellow stays for four full weeks at a host institution and leaves on the Thursday of the fifth week. The grant for living expenses would be 4 * €600 + 1 * €400 = €2.800. 

Travel costs:  The amount reimbursed depends on the city in which the researcher is appointed and is travelling from. For researchers based in Europe the maximum is €500, for researchers based outside Europe it is €1.500. The amount reimbursed depends on actual travel expenses based on the cost of second-class rail or economy class air travel. These amounts are a one-off per grant. If a visiting fellow stays for a longer or shorter time, the travel costs reimbursement is not adjusted. 

There is no compensation for consumables or other research cost. These are expected to be covered by the host institution.

Senior scientists (assistant professors and above) who are members of ANION, or have a clear link with ANION consortium, can apply on behalf of a foreign visiting fellow that they would like to invite to be hosted at their institute. The visiting fellow while not the applicant, will receive the awarded funding.

• Applications can be submitted twice per year, before April 1 and before October 1 and should be sent to anion@LIC.leidenuniv.nl.
• Applications are assessed by the ANION Outreach committee and ultimately approved by the ANION management team. Successful applications will be notified by email and sent their grant award letter.
• The programme has a maximum budget of €11.000 per year over the ten-year duration of the ANION project. The programme strives, where possible, to spend the budget in proportion to the time remaining on the project. As such, a limited number of grants can be awarded per funding cycle. If the budget is exhausted before the end of the current year, new applications will only be considered again as part of the next year’s April funding round. If the current year’s funding is not exhausted, the remaining funding will be added to the following years available budget. 
• Should the grantee require their grant to be amended after a grant has been awarded, for example, if the grantee wants the duration, or dates of their trip adjusted due to unforeseen circumstances. This must be requested in writing by submitting an amendment request to anion@LIC.leidenuniv.nl outlining the changes requested and the impact of these changes on the originally stated goals of the mission. The changes are only accepted once a new award letter has been issued to the grantee. 
• When the actual visit is shorter than the proposed visit, the subsistence costs are adjusted proportionately.
• After granting, the visit should start within one year after the date the award letter was issued. Failure to begin the mission within this timeframe will result in the cancelation of the grant and require a new grant application to be submitted. 
• Fellows may not apply for financial support through this programme if the fellow is receiving funding for the same trip through any other funding route (double dipping). For example, travel expenses paid for by the fellow’s home institution are not eligible for reimbursement through this programme.
• In all cases the visiting Fellow should be employed at her/his home institution during the visit to the Netherlands.
• After the completion of the exchange, a short report and financial overview justifying the costs needs to be provided. 
• Upon approval of the final report the grant will be paid out in full to the researcher. We strive to do this within 30 days of receipt of the final report. 
• In situations where the application and grant awarding procedure are not accounted for by these rules, any decision taken by the ANION management team regarding that case is final.