Horizon (formerly H Programmes)

Horizon (formerly H Programmes) focuses on scientific innovation in humanities disciplines. These are research programmes that have the potential to determine the research agendas for future humanities research. This requires a coherent approach within a broad research programme.

The instrument also serves a strategic purpose: gaining a better insight of new research lines and trends within humanities disciplines and encouraging the setting of the future research agenda, through the proposals submitted.

Who can apply

Applications are submitted by at least 3 senior researchers from various universities or NWO/ KNAW institutes. Senior researchers are experienced researchers who hold a doctorate and who are appointed at a Dutch research institute. The regulation General Terms and Conditions of NWO Grants, articles 2.1 and 2.2 states which organisations can submit a grant application to NWO.

What can be applied for

Personnel costs

• A combination of postdoc and/or PhD projects funded by NWO. For the members of the programme leadership who make a substantial contribution to the management of the total programme and to the realisation of the synthesising final publication(s) a secondment subsidy - to cover educational and other responsibilities of researchers appointed by the institute - can be applied for. This provides an amount of K€ 50 per member for a period of 24 mounths (0,5fte).

Material costs

• Only material costs directly related to the researchprogramme can be asked for. Travel and accomodations: a) the year and the duration of the stay must be made known in advance, b) wherever possible accommodation expenses should be included in the application.

When can be applied

• Closing date for submitting preliminary proposals was 1 September 2010, 12:00 hours
• Closing date for submitting full proposals was 1 March 2011, 11:59 hours

Extra Information

Full proposals must satisfy the following criteria:

• importance for the humanities. In other words scientific innovation in the humanities disciplines, for example, the development of new lines and methods of research. At the very least Horizon projects have the potential to determine research agendas for future humanities research. The projects proposed must clearly demonstrate their importance for the humanities.
• clear coherency:
  1. this coherency first and foremost concerns the content of the research proposed. It is assumed that the programme has a central and clearly formulated research question that is further elaborated on in the various research projects. If, for example, the main question formulated consists of 7 subsidiary questions then the most obvious approach would be to divide the programme into 7 subsidiary projects;
  2. the coherency is clearly expressed in at least one synthesising (final) publication;
  3. the scientific coherency is also given form in the structure of the programme. The programme should be clearly managed. The application should clearly state how the overall programme will be managed. With this it is assumed that a meeting or connections will be organised between the persons responsible for realising the different projects.

Criteria

Criteria for full proposals

At the very least all proposals shall be assessed for their scientific quality (I.) and for their compliance with the programme criteria (II.). The proposal may include a separate section that explains the expected cultural, societal and possibly technological and economic impact of the programme (knowledge utilisation section). If an answer is given to this section then it will be explicitly assessed on the basis of the points stated under the valorisation criterion. If a section on valorisation is not included then only the scientific quality criterion, the programme criteria and importance for the humanities will apply.

I. Scientific quality

a) objective

• scientific importance of the proposal
• originality/innovative character of the objectives
• clarity of the central research question formulated; operationalisation in subsidiary questions

b) methodology

• suitability of the approach/methodology for the intended objectives
• originality/innovative character of the proposed approach/methodology
• feasibility/realisability
• robustness and phasing of the work plan

c) programme leadership

• previous results from the programme leadership (applicants and co-applicants)
• previous results from the programme leadership in relation to the research proposal and supervision

II. Programme criteria

a) added value of the programmatic design

b) coherency between the programme description and the projects it contains, and between the separate projects

c) management of the programme

III. Importance for the humanities

IV. Knowledge utilisation

Procedure

Full proposals

• preliminary proposals are assessed for admissibility (the administrative aspects are assessed by the secretariat, the admissibility of the content by the evaluation committee)
• external experts issue advice about each proposal
• the applicants may respond to the anonymised reports
• the evaluation committee:
  a) can invite applicants for an interview and allow the result of this to count in the qualification and prioritisation process
  b) uses the NWO scale
  c) prioritises the fundable proposals
  d) advises the Humanities Divisional Board

The Board of the Division for the Humanities:
a) marginally assesses the procedure and then establishes the final evaluation based on the recommendations of the evaluation committee
b) can deviate from the evaluation committee’s prioritisation proposal due to policy considerations
c) will decide about the awarding of grants in June 2012

Each applicant will receive a report that gives the average score of the committee members, the average final score and a brief explanation of these figures, for each main evaluation criteria.

Committees

The Evaluation Committee will be published on www.nwo.nl/gw (in Dutch only).

Budget

The maximum size of an application is M€ 2. If the maximum grant of M€ 2 per programme is exceeded, then any additional costs must be funded by the institutes concerned.

Financiers

NWO Division for the Humanities.

Contacts

• Ms drs. R.M. van Kempen-Vonk
  phone: +31 (0)70 344 08 62, e-mail: r.vankempen@nwo.nl