# eScience Center Fellowship Information Session

[This Document](https://tinyurl.com/fellowshipinfo23) is synchronized as you type, so that everyone viewing this page sees the same text.

## 🗓️ Agenda
| | 22 February, 2023, 2pm |
|-|-|
|14:00| **Welcome**
|14:05|**Introduction to the eScience Center** - Niels Drost, Programme Manager
|| [slides](https://nlesc-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/n_drost_esciencecenter_nl/EW4kBlD1gi1NkJbooA00jmsBzVaBo5E9-c2BW8pA-jfC9A?e=dKJPTh)
|14:10|**The eScience Center Fellowship Programme: What to expect?** - Lieke de Boer, Fellowship Coordinator
|| [slides](https://nlesc.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/FellowshipProgramme/ET2kVCa83adCgxk-ujzppagBW5ebm77l3AZbkAJ2R9Zqcg?e=sYlzKR)
|14:20|**Lightning talks:**
||**Rachael Ainsworth**
|| Community Manager at the [Software Sustainability Institute](https://www.software.ac.uk/)
|| [slides](https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22137512.v1)
||**Davide Spalla**
|| [eScience Fellow 2022-2023](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/davide-spalla/) and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Donders Institute
|| [Project website](https://neural-data-science-course.github.io/material.html)
||**Dörte de Kok**
|| [eScience Fellow 2022-2023](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/dorte-dekok/) and Assistant Professor at University Groningen
||[slides](https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22140677.v1)
|14:35| **What can we do for you?** - Pablo Rodríguez-Sánchez, Research Software Engineer
| | [slides](https://nlesc-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/p_rodriguez-sanchez_esciencecenter_nl/EerCkOncmZJFpukBdJ_g1zgB4peb4yGnfCY6Lcsy-VXDgA?e=3UpIPj)
|| Contact: [@DonMostrenco](https://twitter.com/DonMostrenco), [personal website](https://pabrod.github.io/), [GitHub](https://github.com/PabRod)
|14:45| **Q&A**

## 👩‍💻🎓 Fellowship Coordination team

Lieke de Boer, Carlos Martinez-Ortiz
Contact us both at [e-mail]

## Questions:question:

Please type your questions in the chat, or below. We will answer them throughout the call, and keep the answers here for you to come back to.

### Questions for the Fellowship Programme Coordinators

### Consultancy

- **Could you tell more about the content of eScience Center support hours? What doest it really involve?**
- It means you can have 40 hours of support from eScience center staff (for example one of our RSEs or Community Managers can help you running a workshops) --- note from fellow aspiring Fellow: appendix B of the [full call pdf](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Call-for-applications-eScience-Center-fellowship-2022.pdf) has a list of expertise within eScience center staff
- **Is is possible to connect to the SIGs or sections you mentioned outside the fellowship program?**
- Yes and no -- some of the SIGs organise external events, some have invited speakers, and some even have external guests joining on a regular basis. If you are interested in any SIG specifically, you can email us at [e-mail]!
- **Can one exchange the money (or part of it) for more support hours?**
- No, there is a limit on our RSEs' time that can be spent on this.

### Eligibility

- **Is it possible to apply as a junior researcher?**
- Yes! As long as you are affiliated with one of the institutes on our list of eligible organizations. [Check out appendix A](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Call-for-applications-eScience-Center-fellowship-2022.pdf)
- **Does the fellow have to be employed at a university/research institute during the fellowship? what if the contract finishes during the time of the fellowship? +1**
- As long as you are employed at a Dutch research organization at the start of the Fellowship, this is not a problem! You will need to access the money from the Fellowship that you will use through your affiliated institute, so special arrangements may need to be made with them.
- **It does seem mainly geared towards researchers, how about research support?**
- As long as your proposal focuses on improving the awareness or use of research software, you are welcome to apply.
- **Is it possible to apply as a team?**
- No. But one of you can apply as a representative of the team.
- **If awarded, can a fellow still apply for other eScience Centre funding?**
- Yes, this is a separate funding mechanism and does not conflict with our other calls.
- **Is there a maximum amount of applications an individual may submit? I have multiple strong ideas but I am not sure if we are allowed to submit more than one application.**
- It’s really cool to hear you have so many ideas that are within the scope of the Fellowship! There is no limit to the number of applications you can submit, but we can only grant one Fellowship, for one project plan, per person.
- **Are fellowships open to those not (currently) employed at a Dutch institute (but with a Dutch link such as a guest affiliation)?**
- (Carlos): Unfortunately no. We have a list of Eligible organisations [Appendix A of the call for applications](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Call-for-applications-fellowship-2023.pdf)
- (Lieke): If you expect to be affiliated with a Dutch institute by June, you may be eligible. You can contact us and lay out your specific situation if you like!
- Also, check if your guest host institution can arrange something for you - some institutes will be fine with providing grant money to guest researchers. Best to take this up with your local grant office!

### Project restrictions and funding restrictions

- **Are there any restrictions regarding on what can the money of the fellowship can be spend on?**
- You cannot pay salaries from the budget, so it only covers expenses and consumables. If you have any specific example of something you'd like to spend it on, please let us know and we will let you know if it is possible.
- **Does no salaries also mean no student assistants?
- That's correct.
- **I have some projects in mind that could fit, but I would like professional support from the eScience center as a consult (for instance) and a student-assistant to execute the work. Or rather, hire him/her to do some of my other tasks so that I can do this project. Is this possible?**
- Unfortunately this is not possible.
- **Does it matter if the budget covers expenses for someone else than the Fellow?**
- If it is clear from your proposal that other people's expenses would need to be covered, this is not a problem.
- **What if you have a partial contract at your institution (e.g., 70%), can you use the money to work more hours (yourself) on creating educational materials or organizing workshops (which is not part of the tasks you are paid for)?**
- Because of restrictions on the eScience Center, we cannot pay for your time. We can only give you money if you file an expense claim with us (I have spent x amount of euros on y for my project, can I please have x back, with a receipt). Alternatively, we can pay for a larger expense (say, flight ticket, membership, conference fee), if you request that kind of payment from us in advance. But we cannot simply transfer money to you. Unfortunately, if you are not creating educational materials within the context of a course or a workshop you funded from your fellowship budget, we simply cannot pay for your time doing this.
- **Can I apply to the fellowship for buying specific PCs or GPUs for implementing some opensource softwares/methods? Thanks.**
- If this is part of a broader effort to improve the use of this software in a community, this could fall within your fellowship budget.
- **Is a "product pitching video" (made with support from a company who knows what they're doing) for the website of our research software (to showcase what the software can be used for) something that could be covered?**
- Yes!
- **Is it okay if I organize a set of meetups where software is ONE topic, but not the only one?**
- As long as you can convince us that this set of meetups improves the state of research software, then yes.
- **Could the project deal with scripts that are part of a software such as Matlab or should purely be written for Python or R etc?**
- Software written in whatever language works. If Matlab software is very important within your community, a project that focuses on that could still improve the use of it.
- **What do you consider "software"? I mean, if we have some scripts which we think are useful to other researchers, and want to make them better/usable (together with good documentation + best practices), and do some training with them, does it count as "software"?**
- Research software can be any piece of code, script, package, tool, library, or programme written for research. So scripts count! You do not have to develop very "professional" software to be eligible for this Programme.
- **Is it possible to extend the fellowship by the time of my maternity leave?**
- Yes! As in our large calls, the eScience Center applies NWO’s Talent Scheme [extension clause for parents](https://www.nwo.nl/extensieregeling). A request for extension, to be made directly to the eScience Center, must be approved before submission of the full proposal.
- **I have software (on GitHub) that I would like to work on and be a bit more professionalized, but I am not a programmer. It would be great if it were a bit more generic, so that it's easily implemented by others on other systems. For instance make a docker, and a proper manual. I could 'hire' a service from some of our IT department people that are expert to help and make it better. I could try to become a programmer and expert, or become an expert in knowing just the right person to ask. But asking is never for free... :-) Would that fit?**
- First of all, just to be clear: you cannot use the money to pay for people's time in wages or salaries. If your goal is to become an expert in asking the right people - this is in theory possible, but I think we would prefer a project to be more community focused. For example, you could set up a study group that together learns how to write good documentation, and as a working example creates good documentation for your software. Or, you could compile a database of experts that is shared with a wider community. This way, you are creating a community, or making your software available to a wider community.
- **Following up on the previous question: does that follow into the kind of support that the eScience Center will give?**
- The consultancy support from the eScience Center is meant to help you help others. So in terms of the example above, the eScience Center could help you in learning how to become better at writing documentation, and give you advice on how to teach others about proper documentation. Or, they could help you become better at using Docker, and point you to places that could help you set up Docker for your specific project.
- **Could you give some examples, please, of how you expect the money to be used when there is no clear need for hardware or other material costs?**
- You could spend it on training, flight tickets for speakers, flight tickets for yourself to attend conferences, conference fees, hiring fees for event spaces, memberships of communities, online community impact like web server hosting, or other kinds of dissemination
- **Is a university a community?**
- Yes
- **What do you mean by dissemination?**
- Anything that increases the visibility or ease of use of software by others. It does not have to be a workshop or a course, it could also be the accessibility, visibility or quality of documentation that accompanies your software that's shared with others.
- **Can you do a joint fellowship with several applicants from the same institution? Are there any aspects to consider if we want to do that?**
- (Carlos): The fellowship is granted to an individual, so only one of you can be named as a fellow. You could mention collaboration with colleagues in your institution in your application, and that would be valuable. There is no restriction for several of you applying in parallel, but there is no guarantee you would all be granted
- **I see that the past Fellows really address the importance of contribution to the community. I’d like to know how important that is, for the proposal. **
- (Lieke): the fellowship programme is really focused on the community aspect. For more technical contributions, some other eScience Center calls may be more suitable.

### Duration of the activities and time investment

- **Do the activities I am planning to carry out need to last one whole year?**
- No, it can be a project of any length, as long as the activity you are organizing falls within the timespan of the fellowship (June 2023-May 2024). Your fellowship is your affiliation with us, and your project can be shorter than that. We do expect you to participate in Fellowship activities organized by us during the entire year, which will probably come down to about a week of time in total during the entire year (that includes the kick-off day, a workshop, a project meeting and maybe other meetings at the eScience Center that are interesting to you).
- **I'm a PhD student with limited time to allocate to the fellowship. Is it possible to get an estimate of the workload? +1**
- It really depends on what your plan is! Your fellowship plan could be very little additional work if you incorporate some actitivies you are already involved in. We do expect you to participate in Fellowship activities organized by us during the entire year, which will probably come down to about a week of time in total during the entire year (that includes the kick-off day, a workshop, a project meeting and maybe other meetings at the eScience Center that are interesting to you).
- **Can the fellowship project be something that is NOt so spread out over a longer time as well? Say you would develop a certain software/product, it might be more beneficient to work on this full time during a shorter period instead of something spread out. +1**
- Your fellowship project could take 1 week or be spread over several months -- there are no restrictions in this sense.
- **It is clear that the fellowships starts at June 2023 and runs for 12 months till May 2024. What I could not deduce from the application form and extensive application text is what the weekly time investment should be in these projects? E.g. are applications expected to work on the project only part of their weeks (eg 5 hours), or are applications expected to work on their projects on a full-time basis? One can imagine this has major consequences for the scope of the project, and also whether or not an application can keep on working within his current function/position.**
- Your Fellowship project should have impact and be feasible, and that’s what matters. There is no minimum amount of time that you have to spend on your project. If your project would be to organize an activity that lasts around one week, in the beginning of the Fellowship year, that would still fall within the scope of the Fellowship, as long as you convince us that you are improving research software with your activity. We do expect you to participate in Fellowship activities organized by us during the entire year, which will probably come down to about a week of time in total during the entire year (that includes the kick-off day, a workshop, a project meeting and maybe other meetings at the eScience Center that are interesting to you).

### Awarding process
- **How many fellows will you be able to support?**
- We expect to award 20 fellows, irrespective of the type of support

### IP and copyright
- **It was a bit hard to find the (most up-to-date) Publishing, Licensing and IP document from the application form. Also: in simple terms, what are the main points regarding, for example, IP if I am making my own research software and want to use the funding to, for example, generate awareness for this software?**
- https://www.esciencecenter.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/ip_rules_for_nlesc_projects_202116.pdf
- Hopefully the above link can answer your questions!
- Thank you, very clear. Everything open source/science, love it!
- that's what we're all about! :slightly_smiling_face:

### Other
- **What's the relationship between the eScience Center and the Software Sustainability Institute? Why are we hearing from SSI Fellows?**
- The eScience Center and SSI have friendly ties. The SSI has run their own fellowship for years now. This is the first edition of the eScience Center Fellowship, but it has been inspired by the SSI Fellowship. Ideally, we'd like to hear from previous fellows during an information event, but since this is the first time the eScience Center runs it, we invited SSI Fellows to give an impression of what it's like to be a Fellow in a similar context. Hopefully they can serve as an inspiration to people interested to become an eScience Center Fellow.
- **Medicine is the most relevant application field of my project. Should I include it in life sciences or natural sciences in section 2c of the application form?**
- (Carlos): Medicine falls under life sciences.
- **Is it possible to ask one of you to check my application before I send it? I really lack of experience writing proposals. Thanks.**
- After checking: Unfortunately, we cannot check your application and give you feedback. We would have to offer that service to all applicants and we do not have the resources. I recommend seeking help from yourn local grants office. It is their job to support researchers in these types of applications. They can guide you through the process.

### Questions for Rachael Ainsworth

- **Are SSI initiatives / calls open to people in The Netherlands?**
- (Rachael)Yes! We are running an International Fellowship pilot to help us identify challenges of scaling up the programme internationally in the future. Each year we have 3-6 spaces for Fellows who are based outside of the UK. You can find out more information about the programme here: https://software.ac.uk/fellowship-programme including more information about the application process (such as eligibility, assessment criteria, etc.) from 2023 here: https://software.ac.uk/fellowship-programme/2023
- (Rachael) The SSI Fellowship application involves a video screencast and you can view some of the 2022 applications in this YouTube playlist to get an idea of the proposed Fellowship plans: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpX1jXuNTXGpDI8b9gA-b4pwKIGXILS-f
- **Can anyone join the events that you just showed**
- (Rachael) Yes! Everyone is welcome to join us at Collaborations Workshop 2023 which is taking place as a hybrid event in Manchester, UK from 2-4 May. You can find more information (including the provisional agenda, call for submissions, and registration) here: https://software.ac.uk/cw23
- (Rachael) I also want to highlight that Lieke is on the Steering Committee this year and Carlos has been on the Steering Committee previously!
- (Rachael) We also organise Research Software Camps whic takee online over two weeks and focus on introducing basic research software skills and good practices, as well offering one-to-one support as part of our Learning to Code mentorship programme. Our next Research Software Camp is taking place from 19-30 June and there are many opportunities to join and get involved: https://software.ac.uk/research-software-camps

### Questions for Dörte de Kok

- **Did you organise any activities to increase the visibility of your software?**
- (Dörte) Not yet. I planned to organize a workshop, but now are looking into the possibility of turning it around and visit relevant conferences/publishing in relevant papers to increase the visibility.

### Questions for Niels Drost

- **Are all the collaborative projects within the Netherlands?**
- (Niels) Due to the nature of our funding, every project has a "Lead Applicant" associated with a dutch research performing organization, but the team could consist of researchers from anywhere (including non-academia).

## 🖥 Fellowship website

[link](<https://www.esciencecenter.nl/fellowship-programme/>)

## 📚 Resources and links
[Zoom link](https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88958503487?pwd=dDBpcWVvcUVFQ3dGa1Zac0ZScTBIZz09)
[eScience Center Open Calls](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/calls-for-proposals/)
[Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship](https://www.software.ac.uk/programmes-and-events/fellowship-programme)
[eScience Center blog](https://blog.esciencecenter.nl/)
[Workshops & Training Materials](https://www.esciencecenter.nl/digital-skills/)
[Research software directory](https://research-software-)
[Neural Data Science by Davide Spalla (Fellowship project)](https://neural-data-science-course.github.io/material.html)
[Tilbot, project by Fellow Jan de Wit](https://tilbot.io)

## ⚖️ License

All content is publicly available under the Creative Commons Attribution License: [creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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