VERAcore Seed Grants

VERAcore is happy to announce that we are starting a VERAcore Seed Grant initiative. We will support pilot accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) projects at the AMS facility VERA, University of Vienna.

Applications for VERAcore Seed Grants will be accepted two times a year: 1^st May and 1^st November. They are open to all researchers at research institutions world-wide, including Austria, who are allowed and willing to disseminate their results. We encourage especially PhD students and Postdocs to apply. For each deadline, there will be two VERAcore Seed Grants offered: one for ¹⁴C (including sample preparation) and one for non-¹⁴C projects (not including sample preparation).

A maximum number of five (¹⁴C) and seven (non-¹⁴C) samples, respectively, can be funded.
This corresponds to 2000 € (¹⁴C) to 1200 – 3000 € (non-¹⁴C) according to the current price list for external (non-commercial) users.

Due to currently running 3^rd-party-funded projects, we encourage users for certain topics to check first if they are eligible to apply for AMS measurements there before applying for a VERAcore Seed Grant. These are the following topics:

·         Human evolution and archaeological sciences at HEAS Seed Grants

·         Nuclear astrophysics at ChETEC-INFRA Transnational Access

·         Development of innovative, sustainable materials at ReMade@ARI Transnational Access

Proposal submission

Users are advised to use the template for ¹⁴C and for non-¹⁴C provided for proposal submission. After conversion to a pdf-file, it should be submitted by email to robin.golser@univie.ac.at and/or silke.merchel@univie.ac.at.

Selection criteria

• scientific excellence
• priority will be given to users who
  • have not previously used VERAcore
  • are working in countries where no AMS for the requested radionuclides is available
  • are applying AMS for the first time
  • are affiliated with an Austrian research institute.

Proposals will be evaluated by all members of the VERAcore Facility Access Committee. Results will be communicated to the applicants within one month after submission.

Successful proposals allow users

• remote access, e.g. ”hands-off”, such as AMS analysis of mail-in samples (untreated samples (¹⁴C) or fully-chemically-treated samples (non-¹⁴C))
  or
• in person (physical) access, i.e., “hands-on”, but without travel and subsistence support from VERAcore.

Users accepting VERAcore Seed Grants

• should submit a report of no more than 2 pages 3 months after receiving results
• allow to be named for outreach purposes of VERAcore (e.g., social media, www)
• are obliged to acknowledge support from VERAcore by the following text string included into a publication: “AMS measurements were supported by a VERAcore Seed Grant, University of Vienna.”
• are encouraged to publish open access
• are obliged to properly acknowledge VERAcore staff as co-authors if they were one of the scientific drivers of the work done, or played a key role in the AMS measurements
• are encouraged to present the outcome of their research at VERA
• are obliged to inform VERAcore about presentations of the AMS data at conferences and successful publication.