Thanks to the help of the King Baudouin Foundation, acting on behalf of the SofinaBoël Fund for Education and Talent, the FNRS and the FWO (the Research Foundation Flanders) will grant in 2025 the SofinaBoël Fellowships to talented PhD students for a research and/or training stay abroad.

SofinaBoël Fellowships 

• Aimed at talented PhD students for a research and/or training stay abroad.​
• Candidates may go abroad to a host institution of their choice in all countries worldwide except the United States of America (for which another mobility scheme with the BAEF exists).
• The stay abroad will last either 6 or 12 months and should fall within the academic year 2025-2026.

Fellowships support

• Fixed allowance of 1.650 €/month. Top-up funding that may be used for accommodation, daily living expenses, expenses related to the research or training undertaken in the course of the Fellowship, and local transportation.
• Travel costs: a lump sum of 1.000 € covering one economy class return ticket.

Eligibility criteria

• Candidates must be PhD students with a fully paid affiliation at a Belgian University at the deadline of the call and when leaving for the research stay. 
• Candidates are expected to maintain their paid affiliation for the entire duration of their stay.
• Candidates must have obtained a MA or MSc after November 1^st, 2020.
• Candidates must have been affiliated to a Belgian university for at least one full year prior to the submission deadline and be affiliated to a Belgian university for at least the entire duration of the research stay.​
• Beneficiaries of clinical PhD fellowships, as well as candidates from the Royal Military Academy, are eligible.
• Candidates who have already obtained a SofinaBoël Fellowship in the past are not eligible. 

Evaluation criteria

An independant Panel, appointed by the FNRS and the FWO, will evaluate all applications according to the following evaluation criteria:

• The candidate's profile.
• The candidate’s motivation, expressed in a motivation letter.​
• The quality of the host institution.
• The potential to realise the project described in the application.
• The transfer of knowledge obtained abroad to the research group of the applicant in Belgium.
• The project's merits and benefits to the candidate's career. 

The final decision will be made by the Board of Trustees of the Fund SofinaBoël for Education and Talent, on basis of the FNRS/FWO independent Panel recommendations.

Call timeline

• Opening of the call: 9 September 2024
• Deadline of the call:12 November 2024
• Panel meeting: February 2025

Applications, written in English, must be sent electronically to Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser. on November 12^th, 2024 at the latest. 

The requested documents are :

• The application form duly completed.
• A detailled curriculum vitae (including a list of publications).
• A letter of reference by the applicant’s PhD supervisor.
• A personal motivation letter.
• An invitation letter from the foreign host institution.
• A detailed curriculum vitae (with list of publications) of the head of the foreign research group.

On the initiative of the Baillet Latour Fund, the prestigious Baillet Latour Biomedical Award will be awarded in 2025 to independent investigators of any nationality in the early phase of their career to conduct biomedical research in Belgium and to consolidate their independent research team and program. 

Baillet Latour Biomedical Award 2025 

• Topic of the call: "Cardiovascular & Pulmonary Systems".
• Amount: 1.000.000 € over 5 years.​​

The research project

• The research project must be conducted in Belgium and pertain to basic, translational or clinical biomedical research. 

Eligible expenses

• Eligible expenses encompass personnel costs (excluding the salary of the PI),running costs and equipment. Overhead costs are not eligible. 

Eligible candidates

• Applicants must hold a PhD degree awarded no more than 12 years prior to the deadline for applications i.e. September 16^th, 2012 (possibly extended in case of eligible career breaks).​

• Applicants must be affiliated to a Belgian University, a Belgian University Hospital or an eligible Belgian Research Institute (see regulations).​

Applicants must be affiliated to their Institution until April 30^th, 2030.​​

Call timeline

• Opening of the call: May 15^th, 2024
• Deadline of the call: September 16^th, 2024
• First Panel meeting: February 2025
• Second Panel meeting: March 2025
• Start of the Award: May 1^st, 2025​​ 

How to apply

Applications, written in English, must be submitted via the online application system available on www.blba.be by September 16^th, 2024 at the latest.

A PDF version of the application form is available here. This document only aims at providing an overview of the different sections. It should not be used to submit an application. 

The complete regulations of the Baillet Latour Biomedical Award 2025 are available here.

Après le succès des trois premières éditions, la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles et le Québec relancent leur programme de recherche collaborative : 6 projets pourront être financés, dès l’automne 2025, pour un montant total de 2,7 millions €. Objectif : combiner les expertises, les approches et les forces des deux côtés de l’Atlantique pour aboutir à des projets de recherche novateurs, au croisement de plusieurs disciplines dans trois grands domaines de recherche : les sciences naturelles, les mathématiques, et le génie; les sciences sociales et humaines, les arts et lettres;  les sciences de la vie et de la santé.

Communiqué de presse juillet 2024 pdf