CALL FOR APPLICATIONS NO. 1/2024 of March 26, 2024

STER programme – Internationalization of doctoral schools, 2023 edition, Agreement BPI/STE/2023/1/00027/U/00001

Action: support for foreign mobility of the best doctoral students from Poland and abroad pursuing education at a doctoral school

Financing only covers flat-rate subsistence costs for accommodation and meals and flat-rate travel costs. The project does not provide for covering the costs of research, access to equipment, training fees, participation in conferences, etc.Detailed information about the STER programme – internationalization of doctoral schools is available on the NAWA website: https://nawa.gov.pl/instytucje/ster-umiedzynarodowienie-szkol-doktorskich. The regulations for supporting the foreign mobility of the best doctoral students from Poland and abroad pursuing education at the Krakow School of Interdisciplinary PhD Studies under the STER programme – internationalization of doctoral schools, agreement no. BPI/STE/2023/1/00027/U/00001 are available at: https://kisd.ifj.edu.pl/ster-program-2024-2026/

SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS:

The time necessary to prepare and approve documents enabling an internship trip under the STER programme is min. 1 month, so trips should be planned well in advance.

The grant beneficiaries/scholarship holders shall be selected in an open competition from among those KISD doctoral students who submit in the period from March 26, 2024, to April 17, 2024, until 2 p.m. complete set of documents:

1. doctoral student’s application containing:

1. information about the place of the planned internship (center, research group, etc.), time and duration – note: the trip cannot be shorter than 1 month*, the project may finance 1-, 2- and 3-month trips;
2. description of research plans planned to be implemented at the inviting center (max. 2 pages). The description should include information regarding: 
   • a stay plan covering the subject and purpose of research – necessarily directly related to the preparation of a doctorate – along with a justification of the length of the planned stay; in the case of trips lasting 2 months or longer, the justification for the length of the trip must be detailed;
   • the impact of the trip on cooperation with the selected center – whether it is a continuation of current scientific cooperation related to the implementation of existing projects, or an action leading to the establishment of cooperation in the near future;
   • whether the trip can be documented by joint publications or conference presentations – especially in the case of longer trips; VERY IMPORTANT – publications resulting from joint research must include acknowledgment of the project with the following content: “X.Y. acknowledges financial support provided by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange NAWA  under the Programme STER- Internationalisation of doctoral schools, Project no BPI/STE/2023/1/00027/U/00001”.
   • can the trip be treated as an “introduction” to individual presentations enabling the doctoral student to conduct research in international cooperation, e.g. under the NAWA-Bekker scholarship, NCN grants, etc.;
   • whether the trip creates an opportunity to work on a doctorate in a more formalized mode through international cooperation agreements, e.g. under the supervision of two supervisors, or in the “double” doctorate formula, cotutelle program, etc.

2. An invitation from a foreign center confirming the willingness to accept a doctoral student within the period specified in point 1 – in particular, this applies to the lack of any requests for co-financing of research and the lack of formal and organizational obstacles related to the admission of a doctoral student.

3. The supervisor’s opinion regarding the justification for the purpose of the trip to a specific foreign center/research group in connection with the preparation of the doctoral dissertation.

4. Consent of the supervisor for the internship trip, signed by the relevant Deputy Director of KISD.

ATTENTION! Planning an internship trip requires consultation with the promoter(s). It should be taken into account that the length of a scientific stay devoted to planning research is usually different from the length of stay devoted to conducting this research. The internship trip cannot interfere with the activities planned in the individual research plan, in particular it cannot affect the deadline for submitting the doctoral dissertation at the end of the education.     

Doctoral students planning to apply for mobility scholarships are asked to carefully read the requirements set out in the program regulations, in particular the documents that the program participant is obliged to submit both before departure and after return. A doctoral student who is undergoing an internship is obliged to stay abroad in the inviting entity for the entire indicated period of the trip. To settle the trip, it is necessary to provide a certificate from the foreign inviting center confirming the stay (the original of the certificate prepared in color must be provided at the end of the internship stay, with a detailed description of the learning outcomes achieved by the doctoral student).

*month – a full calendar month or in the case of starting the trip on a day other than the first day of the month, the period from the day starting the trip (e.g. March 15) to the day preceding this day in the next month (April 14), Example: March 15 – April 14.