2019 Summer Studentships

The Society of Spanish Researchers in the United Kingdom (SRUK/CERU) is pleased to announce the launch of the second edition of the SRUK Summer Studentships. These studentships will support the visit of undergraduate/masters students from Spanish Universities to research groups in the UK.

The goal of these studentships is to support and strengthen the practical skills of Spanish students and in the meantime as a supervisor in the UK, to gain leadership skills and enrich your CV (Honorary Lecturer recognition. See details below) and to create networks with the Spanish Universities. Funding is limited and awards will be made in a competitive basis on research excellence, student training, the CV of the applicant, and expected impact to the host. SRUK members interested in hosting a summer student must apply before March 11 ^th 2019 (20:00 GMT)

Awards

Up to thirty studentships are available in the areas of Biology, Biochemistry, Biomedicine, Pharmacy, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Environmental Science, Physics, Mathematics and Food Technology.
Studentships will last between two and four months
Studentships will take place between 1^st June and 30^th December 2019
Studentships provide the funding for mobility of the student, but it does not provide funding for consumables or student fees.
Applicants may use the award to attract additional funding

Eligibility

This grant is open to all (students, junior and senior) SRUK/CERU regular and associate members of the Society that want to act as host for summer students. Non-members can apply only after submitting their membership registration.
Supervisor applications will be evaluated by a joint Committee composed of members of ‘Fellowships’ and ‘International’ Working Groups. Members of the Evaluation Committee will not be eligible. Evaluation will be based on the following criteria:

- Research Excellence (point 2 of the application form, evaluated up to a maximum of 25 points);
- Student training (points 3, 4 and 5, evaluated up to a maximum of 25 points in total)
- Impact of the studentship in the applicant’s career (point 6 of the application form, evaluated up to 25 points)
- The CV of the applicant (evaluated up to 25 points)
The number of summer studentships awarded to each scientific area will be proportional to demand.
The availability of additional/independent funding should be specified in the application (Point 7 of application form). If no independent funding is available, the applicant must provide support to the project from their Line Manager or Head of Department.
Applicants must confirm eligibility with their British host institutions (point 8 of the application form).

Selection Student-Supervisor:

The pre-assignation student-supervisor is designed to facilitate the management of the programme with the main objective to find the optimal match student-supervisor. This selection will be based on the academic criteria of the students and the selection experience from the Spanish Universities in this kind of programmes.

The selection criteria between the selected host (SRUK supervisor) and trainee (Spanish student) will be based on the following steps:

1: Students will choose their preferred hosting groups among the offer of given projects by the host supervisors (applicants of this call)
2: The Spanish Universities will match the expertise and requirements from the supervisor (time of mobility, degree, experience requirements,…) with the academic level and predisposition of the students. The Spanish University will justify to supervisors and SRUK the reason for the match and the demand and waiting list of students to a given hosting group.
3: After the pre-assignation and communication, the supervisor will have 10 days to interview the students. In the event of any disagreement with the pre-assignation, the University/SRUK will provide the contact of other students in the waiting list. The Spanish Universities and SRUK will manage the online interviews for the host and pre-selected students.
4: Universities will arrange the final matching of the candidates with a host and communicate to the host and SRUK the final resolution.

Application

You must download and complete the following Application Form, and submit together with you CV (max 2 pages) as a single pdf file.
Applications must be filled in English.

The deadline for SRUK Summer Studentships 2019 is 20:00 GMT on Monday 11th March 2019.

Please email your application to [email protected] using the subject line “SRUK Summer Studentships 2019: Name of the applicant”.

Further Details

The Spanish Universities involved in this call are the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Facultad de Ciencias), Universidad de Zaragoza (Facultad de Ciencias) and Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Facultad de Ciencias experimentales).
The students coming from UAM and UniZar will be financed by the Erasmus+ programme
The students will be fully covered with insurance from Universities and/or European programmes.
Those supervisors in the UK will be officially recognized by the Spanish Universities as Honorary Lectures only in case this supervision includes ECTS credits for the students.
At the end of the studentship, SRUK Researchers (hosts) must complete a survey about their experience in the studentship. This could be used by SRUK/CERU for improving next calls. They may also be invited to participate in scientific outreach activities organised by SRUK/CERU, such as a Science in the Pub event, a Pint of Knowledge event or entries in the SRUK/CERU blog.
Participants (students and hosts) may be invited and funded to attend a scientific symposium by the participant Spanish Universities in 2020 (event to be confirmed).
As an example of the successful first edition with the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, a video of the closure ceremony with students and supervisors can be watched in here.