Overview
The Flemmish funding agency, FWO, evaluates postdoc applications through a set of criteria (see Postdoc preselection score grid)* that fall into two big groups: (1) the researcher and (2) the research proposal.
The FWO application consists of two parts:
(1) project outline (pages 20-21 of the Junior postdoc example application form and Senior postdoc example application form*)
(2) questions section (pages 10-19, 22-54 of the Junior and Senior postdoc example application form)
This guide offers suggestions on how you can use various items in the question section to demonstrate your eligibility for the postdoc fellowship according to the FWO criteria.
The application consists of three parts. The first part is a small introduction (title, abstract, etc.). The second and third parts constitute the bulk of the application. Remember that the FWO experts give you a score that consists of two halves: one half goes for you as the researcher who will be undertaking this project and one half to the research project. Parts 2 and 3 of the application deal with these two halves, respectively.
Before you begin, please take note that there is a character limit for each answer. So do not forget to check the length of your text before submission. This guide indicates the number of characters allowed for each section in parentheses after its title. After each question, the FWO’s comment from the PhD example application form is provided, followed by our own remarks.
*This guide was written in September 2024, and the downloads were backed up at the same time; for updates, please visit the junior and senior postdoc sections on the FWO website. Usually, we do not apply for the Interdisciplinary panel, so section 3. Level of interdisciplinarity does not apply to us
Part 1. General information
Section 1. General
Our comment: In this section, you submit not only the English but also the Dutch text. So please assure that you submit the final version to us several days in advance so that we could help you with translation.
Question 1.1. Enter the English title of your research proposal. (240)
Question 1.2. Enter the Dutch title of your research proposal. (240)
Question 1.3. Complete the abstract of your research proposal – English version. (1500)
Question 1.4. Complete the abstract of your research proposal – Dutch version. (1500)
Question 1.5. Enter the English title of your PhD dissertation. Specify promotor, reserch group and host institution. (400)
Question 1.6. Enter the Dutch title of your PhD dissertation.
Question 1.7. Select up to five scientific disciplines that best characterize the proposed research.
Our comment: For my project on Chinese Buddhism in the seventeenth century, I selected “Study of Buddhism,” “Asian history,” “Early modern history,” “Religion and society,” and “History of religions, churches and theology.” I guess the FWO also uses this to see if the project fits into the expert panel where you apply. I was applying to CULT4 – Theology and Religious Studies, so it was important for me to have a lot of “Buddhism” and “Religion.” I also included references to the region “Asia” and time period “early modern.”
Question 1.8. Enter up to three English free-text keywords or concepts that best characterize the proposed research.
Question 1.9. Enter up to 1hree Dutch tree-text keywords or concepts that best characterize the proposed research.
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Part 2. Assessment of researcher
Section 2. Personal Data
FWO general comment: This section mainly relates to the evaluation criterion ‘candidate’, your scientific contribution in general, and your motivation and substantiation of relevant competences to carry out postdoc research.
Our general comment: The project that you are proposing might be very good for the field, but are you the right person to carry it out? Have you received sufficient prior training, and do you have the knowledge and skills to produce high-quality research?
The FWO evaluates your capabilities from three sides. The first side is the positions you previously held. It is supposed to show that you have had the PhD training and (possibly) work experience that will enable you to carry out the project. This is what Section 2 is all about. The second side is your ability to produce scientific output, such as papers in peer-reviewed journals. The third side is your commitment to the project as well as your embedding in international scholarly networks, which you will have a chance to demonstrate in Section 4 below.
Question 2.1. Explain any career breaks. (2000)
FWO comment: Make sure your current position and previous appointments are well listed in the e-portal Personal details’ section (“Posts / Career”).
Explain possible gaps in your CV in the input field below. Make sure your current position and previous appointments are well listed in the e-portal ‘Personal details’ section (Posts / Career”). If you have interrupted your academic career at any given point for at least three months (maternity leave, parental leave, full-time sickness leave, unconventional career paths such as leave because of activities in industry or other non-academic sectors, etc.) provide details about this below (reason, start/end date). This will allow the reviewers to fairly assess your career stage.
Our comment: Elsewhere on their website, the FWO advises you in particular to use this section to indicate any career breaks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The FWO commentary above mentions, among other things, “unconventional career paths such as leave because of activities in industry or other non-academic sectors.” Elsewhere on their website, the FWO states that it encourages the versatility of its researchers, i.e., the broadness of the scope of their professional experience. So do not fear if you are applying for a PhD after working beyond academia. At the same time, you need to have obtained your Master’s degree or equivalent no more than three years before the final submission deadline.
Section 3. Scientific contribution
FWO general comment: The range of input fields below offer you the opportunity to present a diverse range of career related activities, and of scientific output and achievements, in a context where FWO wishes to leave room for different profiles of academic researchers. That diversity will also be taken into account during the evaluation of your application. The input fields are structured according to the scoring grids, used by the expert panels.
Our general comment: In the Postdoc preselection score grid, the FWO explains that a good candidate should have made “impressive scientific contribution through a range of scientifically relevant activities and original, clear achievements beyond the state of the art (evidenced by publications and/or other relevant research output and impact). There is an emerging international recognition for the candidate’s influential research output.” Moreover, the FWO stresses the importance of “publications or other achievements without PhD supervisor,” as these testify to “the scientific independence of the candidate.” The FWO values “the quality and impact (rather than the quantity) of the publication record.”
Question 3.1. Scientific contribution (3000)
FWO comment: List your (up to five) main achievements, including your most important publications.
Here you can mention the publications and/or other achievements within the past 5 years you consider most relevant in order to prove your competences with regard to this fellowship application. The total number of all items (publications and other achievements) taken together amounts to five.
For publications: list all authors, title of publication and journal name (without abbreviations) with volume, start/ end page and year. Mention whether the publication was peer reviewed or not. For book publications, give all necessary bibliographic information (author(s) or editor(s), book title, publisher, place, year, number of pages). Make sure your complete publication list is up to date in the e-portal ‘Personal details’ section (“Publications”).
For other achievements: provide a short description, when it was undertaken and finalised and list all the relevant participants involved in it.
Mind, do mention for each achievement item (publications and other achievements) your share and its nature, and those of other significant partners in the workload.
Our comment: Papers in peer-reviewed journals weigh more for the FWO than non-peer-reviewed publications. To highlight the more important ones, you can subdivide your answer in several sections, such as “Papers in peer-reviewed journals,” etc. According to the Postdoc preselection score grid, your ability to publish on your own (as a single author or at least as the first author) demonstrates your “drive to improve the prospects of reaching/reinforcing a position of professional maturity” and your “path towards scientific independence.” It is an asset for junior postdocs and a crucial factor for senior postdocs.
Question 3.2. Other scientific output and impact.
FWO comment: Here you are offered the opportunity to show any distinct research output that does not fit in the bibliographic publication list and that is meaningful in a broad sense for your profile with respect to this fellowship application. It may be constituted by a data base, surveys, a technical diagram, software, objects (maquettes, protoypes…), granted patents, keynote lectures or other lectures at scientific or other meetings, the organisation of such meetings, the organisation of or participation in exhibitions, activities as a scientific evaluator for submitted papers or grant applications and the like, and any other type of activity or output you consider to be relevant. Date the output where appropriate. Decribe any scientific or other (societal, economic, …) impact beyond publications and obtained research funding.
Our comment: In addition to dissertations and papers (so-called traditional academic output), the FWO also recognizes and even encourages other achievements. The FWO wants to see that, being a researcher at their expense, you will not only write traditional papers and dissertations but benefit broader society. It also wants to see that you are able to communicate with other people and build connections, which is very important for future development in academia.
According to our experience and the Postdoc preselection score grid, in our area, this section may most likely include:
- organizing panels, workshops, conferences, exhibitions, etc.
- keynote lectures, guest lectures
- doing peer-review of journal articles
- book reviews
- translation of books or papers commissioned by academic publishers
- contributions to databases, encyclopedias, etc.
- production of datasets (e.g., from social network analysis, surveys, fieldwork)
- research supervision and mentoring of bachelor, master and PhD students (important for senior postdoc applications)
- institutional responsibilities (e.g., governance, administration) (important for senior postdoc applications)
- involvement of the candidate as (co-)promotor in research projects (important for senior postdoc applications)
- non-academic lectures, interviews for the general audience
- running a blog, channel on social media, etc.
Question 3.3. List any scientific awards.
FWO comment: Mention the awarding body, title, date, amount and theme.
Our comment: These could include prizes in a language competition, prizes for papers and dissertations, and young scholar awards, such as those of the European Association of Chinese Studies or the World Association of Chinese Studies. This offers the FWO an objective proof of your knowledge and skills.
Apart from that, awards also mean funding that you were awarded to go to a workshop or summer school, and even the scholarship that you have received to cover your tuition fees at your own university. For the FWO, this means that other institutions before them have already noticed your exceptional achievements and decided to offer financial support to you.
Section 4. Motivation and competences
Our comment: In the Postdoc preselection score grid, the FWO states that the candidate should show “a bright, concrete and realistic vision on the own professional future. They reveal the drive that improve the prospects of reaching/reinforcing a position of professional maturity. This is visible in a wide range of activities, skills and experiences, with respect to networks, collaborations, mobility and the like.”
Question 4.1. Write a motivation statement (3000)
FWO comment: Elaborate on your motivation and research interests to pursue an individual PhD trajectory. Elaborate also on how your scientific background and competences will allow you to start the PhD project. Provide a clear and substantiated overview of the skills you have already developed, and on the competences yet to be acquired and how you will acquire them.
Our general comment: We have mentioned above that the FWO evaluates you as a researcher from three sides. The first is your formal career. The second is your ability to produce scientific contribution, and now the third one is your commitment, i.e., your profound interest in doing research and participating in the life of academia. Below are some tentative suggestions on what you can discuss in your motivation statement:
How did you start to learn your main Asian language? Do you have a personal appreciation of the language, culture, etc. of the country? Maybe you have a hobby connected with the country, such as martial arts or calligraphy? How did you get interested in Buddhism? Have you ever been to a Buddhist monastery and interacted with Buddhist monks? Maybe you took part in the Woodenfish program, which takes students from all over the world to experience life in a Buddhist monastery? And so on.
In my motivation letter, I showed that I started to learn Chinese at secondary school. During the university time, I used the opportunity offered by exchange programs to go to China and get involved in the activities of a Buddhist monastery. I mentioned that after graduation I took additional courses at my own expense to broaden my language skills towards Japanese and Tibetan. I think that in this way I managed to persuade the FWO that I have a genuine interest in Chinese Buddhism and that my eagerness to study it stood up the test of time.
Question 4.2. List your career building activities. (3000)
FWO comment: In this field you can mention a range of activities such as education activities, supervision of bachelor, master and PhD students, institutional responsibilities (governance, administration, …), membership of scientific organisations and societies. (past as well as planned) active participation in networks, research collaborations (apart from research stays), R&D services provided to third parties, relevant training and the like.
Our comment: In addition to the options mentioned by the FWO, you may as well include such a subsection as “Courses, study programs, and workshops.”
Question 4.3. Specify earlier mobility (research stays) in other organizations. (2000)
FWO comment: Specify earlier mobility (research stays) in other organizations. Specify any type of organization in Belgium or abroad, contact person, start/end date, function/activities.
Our comment: Elsewhere on their website, the FWO advises you in particular to use this section to indicate any hindrances to your academic mobility caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
You are strongly advised to do research stays, go to summer schools, etc. This helps establish personal connections at other universities, and the FWO highly values this. According to the Postdoc preselection score grid, your intrainstitutional mobility demonstrates your “drive to improve the prospects of reaching/reinforcing a position of professional maturity” and your “path towards scientific independence.” It is an asset for junior postdocs and a crucial factor for senior postdocs.
Question 4.4. Specify concrete mobility plans (research stays) within the FWO fellowship. (2000)
FWO comment: Specify any type of organization in Belgium or abroad, contact person, start/end date, function/activities. See
Regulations of the Research Foundation – Flanders governing the Postdoctoral Fellowship art.19§2.
Our comment: The importance of research mobility for the FWO has just been underscored in our comment to the previous question. This is the follow-up on the same topic. The FWO wants to know if you are aware of the places where people conduct research that are close to your topic. Or maybe there are people with specific expertise whom you want to visit because their advice will benefit your research. Question 4.4 invites you to describe who these people are, why their research or expertise is important for you, and when you are planning to visit them. You are not taking on any obligations here, but simply demonstrating that you know about what is going on in the wider academic world and making some plans that can indeed be useful in the future (e.g., you might try to meet these people or their acquaintances during conferences and then arrange research stays through these connections).
Section 5. Host institution and promotor
Our comment: Here you indicate your prospective postdoc promoter (one of our professors) and Ghent University as your host institution. You may want to ask your supervisor specifically how to fill out the fields “Title,” “Current occupation,” and “Employment rate (%).” Our research unit is called “Department of Languages and Cultures,” and our address is “Blandijnberg 2” in Ghent.
This is followed by sections on co-promotors and co-funding, which you fill out according to your specific situation. If your postdoc is an ordinary, not a joint one, you leave these fields blank or write NA (not applicable) if the FWO comment asks you to.
Part 3. Assessment of research project
Our comment: All that was above was concerned with the first half of the FWO score: assessment of you as a researcher. Now the application moves on to the second half, which is the evaluation of your research project.
At the start of this section, you upload your project outline, for writing which we offer you a separate guide.
Section 6. Project positioning and embedding
Our comment: Relevance and originality are among the criteria that the FWO uses to evaluate project proposals. It wants to invest its money in the production of cutting-edge research, which means that you will be contributing to the international state of the art. So the whole of this section is dedicated to showing how your project is relevant and able to produce new contributions for the academic community at Ghent University and in the world at large, as well as for the general public.
Question 6.1. Explain how this project fits into the research activities of the involved host institution(s). (2000)
FWO comment: Elaborate on the positioning and embedding of your project in the research group(s). If the project has already been initiated, please state the progress of your research.
Our comment: The FWO begins its investigation of the relevance of your project by making sure that Ghent University and, more specifically, its Department of Languages and Cultures as well as the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies within the department are the right places for carrying out the project that you have proposed. Accordingly, when designing your reply, you can consult the introduction of the research scope of the GCBS. You might also be willing to show your awareness of the work of some colleagues at Ghent that can be particularly relevant to you and the existence of some projects to which you might be able to contribute or which you might learn from.
I attach the paragraph that I wrote for my project on the Vinaya tradition in seventeenth-century China for your reference: “Vinaya studies is one of the major areas of scholarly interest at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS), which makes my proposed project highly relevant to the research agenda of Ghent University as the host institution. I anticipate benefiting greatly from supervision by Professor Ann Heirman, who is an expert on Vinaya. In addition, the GCBS has recently hosted several projects that are thematically and/or methodologically relevant to my own, such as Anna Sokolova’s research into the formation of regional Vinaya traditions in mid-Tang China (755–845) and Nan Ouyang’s study of monastic life on Mount Jiuhua between 1949 and 1978. I have already established links with these two young scholars and hope for closer cooperation with them and other colleagues. I am eager to learn more and, if possible, contribute to the Ghent Database of Medieval Chinese (GDMC) project, led by Professor Christoph Anderl, which aims to produce high-quality, annotated digital editions of important medieval Chinese Buddhist texts.”
Question 6.2. Position the project in a national and international context. (1200)
FWO comment: Mention specific research collaborations planned in the course of this project, if appropriate, mention larger projects, programmes or networks your proposal may be part of.
Our comment: Now the FWO is asking whether, as you are working for their money, you will be producing in the course of your research something that is relevant to the broader academic community (not only at Ghent) and even contribute to larger international projects.
I attach the paragraph that I wrote for my project on the Vinaya tradition in seventeenth-century China for your reference: “My research into the history of the Vinaya tradition and Buddhist hagiography more broadly has already generated a number of entries in the UACBS’s “Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist Culture,” and I believe that the proposed project will enable me to make similar contributions to other databases, including the Buddhist Studies Authority and Place Database (coordinated by Professor Marcus Bingenheimer, Temple University), the China Biographical Database (CBDB, coordinated by Professor James Robson, Harvard University) and the more comprehensive Database of Religious History (University of British Columbia). I also intend to add XML/TEI markup to The Gazetteer of Baohua Mountain in the Digital Archive of Buddhist Temple Gazetteers and/or utilize this archive to supplement the biographical information in the aforementioned databases. For instance, at present, many important lay patrons who are named in the gazetteer do not feature in either the Authority and Place Database or the CBDB. Addressing these omissions via the addition of new entries might create a strong impetus for future research into social networks and other scholarly projects.”
Other projects that you might want to mention with regard to China are “Chinese Religious Text Authority,’ and the Chinese Buddhist Canonical Attributions database (CBC@).
Question 6.3. Did you take the issues of gender and diversity into account while designing your research plan (e.g. selection of human participants and/or animals in experiments, relevance of research questions and/or results with respect to gender differences, …)? (1200)
Question 6.4. Did you or will you work with societal actors other than research partners in the whole or parts of the research process (from design of the application up to the execution of the research)? (1200)
Our comment: You first answer Yes or Not applicable, and if you answer Yes, then you provide further justification. If your research touches upon women, minorities, etc. in Buddhism, Question 6.3. is a suitable place to elaborate on this.
Question 6.5. Science communication. Indicate how the results of the proposed research will be communicated to a non-expert audience. (1200)
FWO comment: FWO encourages its fellows to disseminate the results of their research widely and valorise them where possible.
Our comment: Valorization is about setting up a start-up based on your research, so it is not very relevant to our fundamental studies. I attach my own paragraph for your reference. You can see that I mainly wrote on open-access publishing (as it is something that the FWO strongly advocates) and on participation in projects targeted at general audiences:
“Having worked as an independent researcher throughout my non-residential PhD program, I am deeply committed to open-access publishing. I strongly believe that it reduces piracy and enhances access to academic knowledge for underprivileged, independent scholars as well as students and faculty at less prominent educational and research institutions. This is why I will endeavor to publish my results in peer-reviewed journals with open-access options and reputable open-access collective volumes.
I will explore the possibility of organizing events aimed at wider audiences within the frameworks of lecture series organized by libraries, museums, and academic institutions. I also intend to create English-language Wikipedia pages for the key Vinaya figures and sites that I study. In addition, my ongoing contributions to the “Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist Culture” will help to communicate the history of Chinese Buddhism to a wider audience, especially as the project’s coordinators intend to make an expanded version of the encyclopedia freely available online.”
Section 7. Peer-review
Our comment: On the next step, you choose the panel to which you submit your proposal. Most of us submit to CULT4 – Religion and Theology. But you should consult your prospective supervisor about it.
Section 8. Ethics
Our comment: This is followed by a large section of questions with Yes/No answers about ethics. One relevant section here is conducting research activities in non-EU countries, which might be your fieldwork, visiting archives, libraries, and museums in Asian countries. It might be relevant if you are going to do interviews, which means that you have human participants and processing of personal data. Otherwise, it is mostly about ethics in medical experiments.
Section 9. Data Management Plan
FWO comment: Data management is an integral part of sound scientific research. It covers the description of data and metadata, their storage and long-term preservation, the designation of responsible persons, the handling of highly sensitive data, and the open access to and sharing of research data.
The FWO has made data management a key element of its policy for all support channels provided by the FWO. The FWO expects researchers to pay due attention to this dimension before, during and for at least five years after their research.
For background information on data management and the procedures regarding the Data Management Plan (DMP), which FWO expects from its applicants when applying for research funding, please see our website. Please note that the answers to the questions below and the Data Management Plan should cover the full project, including all (inter-) national partners involved in cross-institutional projects.
Our comment: Data has come over to us from sociology and the natural sciences. You do a series of experiments, record their results in long Excel spreadsheets, and then publish a paper based on these results. But the Excel spreadsheets do not go into the paper. So it is important that you safely store them somewhere in case someone has doubts about them. For us, it is relevant if you are doing interviews and store interview records, or if you do some digital humanities, such as social network analysis or use TACL. Then you also have spreadsheets that you can store on GitHUB. In regular humanities, however, we rely on printed books or their digitalized versions, such as CBETA, BDRC, etc., so there is no data that needs to be preserved separately.
I include my own answers under the questions in this section. On the whole, those of us who are not doing interviews are writing something along these lines.
Question 9.1. Describe the datatypes (surveys, sequences, manuscripts, objects…) you will collect and/or generate and/or (re)use during yaw research project. (700)
My answer: This project will be based on textual information gleaned from various printed and/or digitalized sources relating to the [subject of my research]:
- local gazetteers
- genealogies
- autobiographical texts by Buddhist monks
- the Buddhist canon
- digital databases
The project will generate partial or entire translations of texts, in particular those contained in the first three categories.
Question 9.2. Specify in which way the following provisions are in place in order to preserve the data during and at least 5 years after the end of the research. (700)
FWO comment:
Motivate your answer.
– Designation of responsible person (If already designated, please fill in his/her name.)
– Storage capacity/repository
— during the research
— after the research
My answer:
During the research, all active data will be stored on a shared network drive, provided by Ghent University IT Services. This will ensure automatic back-ups, safe storage, and controlled access. (Additional access will be given to the promoter of the research.) In addition, I will make daily backups of important files on an external hard drive. I intend to seek opportunities to publish my translations of primary sources in order that they are permanently preserved and readily available for academic researchers and the general public alike.
Question 9.3. What is the reason why you wish to deviate from the principle of preservation of data and of the minimum preservation term of 5 years?
My answer: NA
Question 9.4. Are there issues concerning research data indicated in the ethics questionnaire of this application form? Which specific security measures do those data require? (optional)
My answer: NA
Question 9.5. Which other issues related to the data management are relevant to mention?
My answer: NA