Ramón Areces Foundation Grants for Doctoral Theses in Life and Material Sciences 2024

The fundamental objective of the Ramón Areces Foundation is to promote scientific and technical research of excellence in Spain through research grants, the training of young researchers, as well as the dissemination, promotion and development of education and scientific culture in general.

In order to fulfil these objectives, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation wishes to collaborate in the training of people who begin their careers as scientific researchers by financing contracts for the completion of doctoral theses in doctoral programmes at Spanish universities and other research centres that aim to obtain the title of Doctor as of January 2025. These contracts will be regulated by Law 17/2022, of September 5, which modifies Law 14/2011, of June 1, on Science, Technology and Innovation and Royal Decree 103/2019 of March 1, which approves the Statute of predoctoral research personnel in training.

This call is oriented towards the following health priorities: Rare diseases and biomedicine.

Requirements

1. Be in possession of a bachelor's degree, engineer, architect or university graduate, with a degree of at least 240 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) credits, at the time of submitting the application. In this call, preference will be given to candidates who have obtained these qualifications between 2020 and 2024.
2. Be enrolled or admitted to an on-campus doctoral program at a university or research center whose headquarters are in Spain or, if not enrolled or admitted to the doctoral program mentioned at the time of submitting the application, be in a position to be admitted prior to the date on which the enjoyment of the aid is formalized (i.e. January 2025).
3. Not be in possession of a doctoral degree or have previously enjoyed a predoctoral contract.
4. Applicants must have an average grade in their academic record for the bachelor's degree, the equivalent degree or qualification of over 7,5 on a scale of 0-10. The average grade of the record will be the one recorded on the degree certificate. In the case of having more than one degree, the calculation must be made for each one separately and the one that is most closely related to the doctoral studies requested will be taken into account, with the rest of the degrees being considered as additional merit.

Endowment

The total economic endowment of the aid will amount to 35.000 gross euros per year, which will finance the remuneration of the successful bidder, as well as the social security contributions charged to the University or research centre, and any other mandatory additional expenses applicable in accordance with current regulations, including the final termination of the contract.

Two other grants of a specific nature will be added to the above:

A grant for stays at international research centres, upon request from the centre where the PhD is being carried out, of 4.000 euros per stay. A maximum of two stays will be financed over the life of the grant. Each stay must last a minimum of three months.

An annual grant of 2.000 euros, which must be used to cover tuition fees, databases, computer equipment and other expenses directly related to the research.

Deadline: October 18, 2024.