Call of grants

This Call seeks to fund research in Economics, including its interaction with Law, in Spain. To this purpose, Fundación Ramón Areces awards these grants, to stimulate research by young and highly qualified professionals and to encourage new projects for the benefit of our society and, ultimately, of the international scientific community.

The grants, for a maximum amount of 36,000 euros, will be awarded to research projects defined over a three-year timeframe, with an optional extension for an extra year, to be carried out at universities or research centers located in Spain. Each investigator or research team may submit a single application. The project should address a relevant topic of Economics, preferably in one of the following priority areas:

• Economic analysis
• Commercial Distribution
• Applied Economics
• Economy and Law
• Economic history

The investigators opting to these grants must hold a PhD degree and be under 40 years old on January 31, 2020. They also need to maintain a working relationship with a university or research center in Spain. If the investigator does not hold a permanent position on the application date, the beneficiary Institution must guarantee his/her permanence at least until December 31, 2023.

If the request is made by a research team, a Principal Investigator must be appointed. The position of Principal Investigator in a Ramón Areces Grant can be held only once in a lifetime. All team members must satisfy the previous conditions.

The application will be completed through the link: "On-line Registration" that will be found on this same website at the opening of the application admission, on May 18, 2020. The documentation required is described in the Appendix at the end of this document. The Research Proposal must highlight the originality of the project in comparison with the existing literature including, where appropriate, information on the similarities and differences between the proposal and those projects that the team members may be carrying out with funding from other sources. The proposal must indicate which are the target journals to publish the results and how many JCR articles are expected as final output of the project.

The deadline for application submission es June 18, 2020. If the project is not chosen for funding, the electronic documentation submitted will be destroyed.

Applications will be analyzed by a Jury appointed by the Foundation. The Jury may request the input from external experts to evaluate the proposals and will choose which projects will be funded. Its decision it will consider the quality, originality, and feasibility of each Project, as well as the scientific record of the investigators.

The Jury’s funding proposal will be reviewed by the Social Sciences Council, and then transferred to the Board of Trustees for final approval and communication to the applicants through the Foundation General Manager. The decision of the Board of Trustees shall be final and is not subject to appeal.

1. The Principal Investigator of each funded proposal will sign a contract with the Foundation regarding the execution of the Project, which will be considered to start on the date of signature. The contract will contain a clause by which the investigator expressly declares that:

• …has not obtained funding from any another source to fund all or part of said Project, apart from the possible use of the funds consigned in the Project Report; 
• …will inform the Foundation about any new funding that affect the Project; and
• ...the funding will be spent exclusively on activities directly related to the Project goals.

2. The Social Sciences Council will supervise the development of the Projects, periodically informing the Foundation about its execution.

3. Monitoring of the aid: After eighteen months from the start date, the Principal Investigator must send to Fundación Ramón Areces:

• …a descriptive memory of the research tasks carried out, indicating their relationship with the Project goals,
• …the list of working papers, publications and / or articles submitted for publication that the project has originated,
• …the list of seminars, presentations at conferences and other activities considered appropriate to highlight,
• …the budget execution of the project up to that moment, as well as.
• ...an electronic copy of the working papers, articles and reports made within the framework of the project.

The previously described documentation must be sent through the access granted to the Principal Investigator to the Private Area of Fundación Ramón Areces.

4. Final Report: after three years from the Project start, the Principal Investigator must send to Fundación Ramón Areces:

• a description of the results obtained, indicating their relevance and relation to the Project goals,
• a summary written in an informative key, of no more than 1,500 words, of what is stated in the previous point,
• the list of publications originated by the Project and their relationship to the publication objectives originally proposed,
• the list of seminars, presentations at conferences given,
• the budget execution of the project, and,
• an electronic copy of the working papers, articles and reports made within the framework of the Project must also be attached.

Said information will be sent through the access granted to the Principal Investigator of the project to the Private Area of Fundación Ramón Areces.

5. The disbursement of the funding will be carried out as follows:

• 50 percent upon signing the contract with Fundación Ramón Areces;
• 30 percent at the beginning of the second period, after approval of the report mentioned in point 3 of this Base; and
• the remaining 20 percent at the end of the third year, after approval of the Final Report mentioned in point 4 of this Base.
• Approval of this Final Report will finish the internal control process by the Foundation. However, the Agreement signed with the beneficiary Institution will explicitly authorize the researcher to spend the remaining funds for another eighteen months. At the end of this last period, the Principal Investigator must inform the Foundation of the activities and results obtained, as well as deliver the final budget execution.

6. The intellectual or industrial property rights that may derive from the execution of each Project will correspond to the authors.

7. The Principal Investigator will collaborate with Fundación Ramón Areces in the public dissemination of the research results. In particular, he/she will adapt the summary mentioned in point 4 of this Base, for dissemination through the different communication channels of Fundación Ramón Areces (blog, magazine, videos, WEB ...).

8. The Social Sciences Council will award the best result reports with a Mention of Excellence, which will include the nonprofit publication of the main results in the Foundation's collection of monographs, to transfer knowledge to society.   

9. After a Project is chosen for funding, the research team must authorize the publication of their names on Fundación Ramón Areces website and / or in any other publication or dissemination activity of the Foundation.

The personal data collected in the applications and attached documentation, as well as that generated throughout the duration of the Project, will be treated in accordance with the provisions of the Organic Law 3/2018 of December 5, of Protection of Personal Data and Guarantee of Digital Rights, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament, as well as that of the Council and the state data protection regulations. Said data will be incorporated into an automated file registered with the Spanish Data Protection Agency by Fundación Ramón Areces. The applicant consents for his personal data to be processed to manage the requested funding and to send him informative communications, including electronically, about future activities of the Foundation. Interested parties may exercise their rights of access, rectification, cancellation, and opposition, in accordance with current legislation, at Fundación Ramón Areces, Calle Vitruvio n ° 5, Madrid 28006.

The applicant or applicants undertake to accept the Foundation's decisions, whatever it may be, which may not be revoked under any circumstances at the request of the applicants.

Presenting an application implies acceptance and compliance, without reservation or exception, of all the Bases and conditions of this Call.

The applicants will send through Fundación Ramón Areces website the following documents in pdf format, organized in different files that must have the names indicated below:

Institutional Data:

• a) CScanned copy of the Authorization of the legal representative of the Center or centers where the research project will be carried out: AUT1_lastnamePI.pdf, AUT2_lastnamePI.pdf…

Application Data:

• b) Summary (including: Project title, name of the Principal Investigator, Institutional info, Summary of the Research Report): TIT_lastnamePI.pdf
• c) Memory of the research project for which the funding is requested: MEM_lastnamePI.pdf.
• d) Detailed description of other funded research projects in which the team members currently participate, indicating their duration and the funding awarded: PRO_lastname.pdf
• e) Any other information that the Principal Investigator considers relevant for the decision process: OTHER_lastnamePI.pdf

Research Team Data:

The following documents are required from each of the remaining members of the research team:

• f) Scanned copy of DNI or Passport all members of the research team: DNI_lastname1.pdf, DNI_lastname2.pdf ...,
• g) Curricula of all members of the research team: CV_lastname1.pdf, CV_lastname2.pdf…,
• h) Authorization to use personal data in accordance with the new personal data protection regulation RGPD (General Data Protection Regulation) of all members of the research team: RGPD_DNI1.pdf, RGPD_DNI2.pdf…