TU Delft Safety & Security Institute Seed Funding – Call for Proposals

The TU Delft Safety & Security Institute calls on TU Delft researchers to submit a proposal for seed funding for transdisciplinary collaborative activities in either initial or more advanced phases. The overall aim of the seed funding program is to increase the impact of safety & security research and education at TU Delft and to strengthen the position of TU Delft in this field.

Each year, usually around fall, the Safety & Security Institute issues a call for proposals from TU Delft researchers. In 2020 and 2021 more than 250.000 euro was awarded to projects involving researchers from all TU Delft faculties.

1. Themes

The proposal should be in line with the Delft Safety & Security institute’s focus themes and aims. Our focus themes are:

• Uncertainty quantification and vulnerability assessment
• Safety & security by design
• Mitigation of impact
• Forensics and failure analysis

Are you wondering whether or how your project idea fits in? Feel free to contact us, we are happy to discuss it with you.

2. Who can apply?

Researchers in safety & security related areas of all faculties of TU Delft may apply, but the main applicant must be a scientific staff member (postdoc, assistant, associate or full professor) with a position at one of the five faculties participating in the Safety & Security Institute.[1] There should be only one contact person / main applicant. We specifically invite early career researchers to apply.

While the institute encourages the involvement of at least two (and preferably three) faculties, we have left the option open to incentivise collaboration in safety and security within one faculty. A proposal submitted by applicants from only one faculty needs to demonstrate that the proposed work is sufficiently interdisciplinary and preferably carried out as a collaboration between different departments in that faculty.

We encourage collaborations with other TU Delft initiatives, for example, other institutes and Delft Research Initiatives. Collaborating with The Green Village [2] could help you in gathering empirical data, information, or a demonstration setup, which could strengthen your proposal.

3. What can be covered?

Examples of activities that can be funded include, but are not limited to:

• networking efforts and preparation for larger research grant applications,
• development of new teaching material,
• small scale demonstrations of potential use cases of envisioned research,
• hosting costs for prominent international guest researchers (no fees),
• organizational costs of workshops and other joint activities,
• costs made for setting-up joint research activities,
• joint activities for master or PhD students

We do not allow applicants to write their own hours on a seed funding project. Hiring a new person or extending an existing contract is possible, as long as the purpose of this extension is clear and fits the aims of the seed funding program. This could, for instance, be for preparing a grant proposal.

A subsidy of max. 15k euro can be requested, depending on the number of faculties involved. Applicants from only one faculty can request up to 5k, two faculties up to 10k, and three up to 15k. You must include a breakdown of costs to motivate the requested amount.

4. Contribution of the proposal / selection criteria

While seed funding projects need to aim at a well-defined small-scale short-term goal, they also need to be a step in a more significant/long-term trajectory. How is the project a stepping stone towards larger safety and security research goals at TU Delft? An example could be setting the scene for securing external research funding in the future. This is the most important part of your proposal.

In deciding which proposals to fund, we furthermore look at the following characteristics of your proposal:

• Collaboration with other TU Delft initiatives, for example, other institutes Delft Research Initiatives, or The Green Village;
• Transdisciplinary cooperation (i.e., interdisciplinary cooperation as well as cooperation with non-academic stakeholders, such as in policy, industry, and NGOs);
• Potential for showcasing TU Delft safety & security research to the outside world;
• Societal relevance.

5. Administration and obligations

The full funding amount is transferred to the main applicant’s financial code soon after the funding is awarded and should be spent within one year. The following obligations apply if you receive seed funding:

• Upon request, applicants should make results and other project updates available to the TU Delft Safety & Security Institute to be shared through channels such as our website, newsletters, and annual report.
• At the end of the seed funding project, we require a publicly available final report on the activity (e.g., the end result itself (paper/publication), a webpage on the institute’s website featuring a written or visual report, a short movie, etc.).
• The funding from the TU Delft Safety & Security Institute should be acknowledged in the project team’s communications as well as any presentation or publication that follows based on this funding

6. How to apply?

We wish to limit the burden of preparing a proposal to a minimum. Please send us by email a short document (max. 1A4 or 500 words), including the following:

• Applicable theme(s) – see (1)
• Applicants’ title, name, academic discipline, affiliation and contact information – see (2).
• Activities & costs – see (3)
• Contribution/merits of the proposal (4)

Proposals can be sent to our mailbox tudssi@tudelft.nl before Monday 14 November midnight. You can contact Eveline Vreede for inquiries.

[1] Faculties of Aerospace Engineering, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Applied Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science, and Technology, Policy and Management.

[2] The Green Village offers the use of facilities available at their living lab for projects in Sustainable building and renovation, Future energy system and Climate adaptive city. You could contact The Green Village for more information via info@thegreenvillage.org