Would you like to go beyond publishing research and have a more significant impact on society by implementing your findings in the real world? The Network Institute wants to help with planning, executing, and piloting impactful outreach activities.

The winning initiative will obtain funding (up to €10,000 euros) and support to carry out an outreach initiative within and outside the VU. The committee will fund one project.

• The application deadline is February 29th 2024, 23:59. See more information here and the application template here. There are only about five paragraphs needed.

Examples of outreach activities include but are not limited to: the setup of a longer-term collaboration to support a municipality with science-backed decisions, tackling a specific scientific problem with a societal partner (e.g., an NGO, a company, a municipality, etc.), organizing events with citizens and societal stakeholders, engaging with local communities to discuss societally-relevant topics, conducting educational sessions, etc.

Selection Criteria

Participants must be in teams of at least 2 members, of which at least one must be a member of the Network Institute. Team members can be VU researchers (at any level – from PhD students to postdoc researchers, professors, etc.), VU staff members (e.g., lab managers), and VU students.

The winning projects will be selected based on the project’s societal relevance, feasibility, interdisciplinarity and support for the NI:

• Applicants must be willing to contribute not only to their proposed initiative, but also to the development of a solid outreach template that the Network Institute can use in future collaboration initiatives. Thereby furthering the impact of your research even more!

Take a quick look at the brief application template here. There are only five sections, including budget.