Research at the University of Antwerp is usually conducted at the level of the research group or research unit. Although group size and composition is a matter on which research groups are more or less free to decide and is partially also dependent on the field of investigation in which the unit is active, the academic authorities favour the establishment of groups with a critical mass in researchers. Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that research quality is not related to the size of the group in which it is conducted and that individual research can be of the highest quality, in particular in a number of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.

This research excellence, sometimes in tandem with conditions on the size of the underlying research group, is also explicitly referred to as a selection criterion by a number of external research funding agencies. The University of Antwerp actively promotes and hence allocates part of its internal research funds to (clustered) frontline research domains in which it has visible excellence.

• Key Research Domains
  

• Core Facilities
  

The Industrial Research Fund (IOF) is an internal earmarked fund, the resources of which stem from the Flemish authorities and are allocated to the universities. The IOF Council advises on the allocation of the funds, which are used to support basic research with economic finality. Part of the funds are spent on hiring post-doctoral fellows (IOF managers), whose job mainly consists in improving the university’s overall performance in basic research as reflected in the parameters governing the distribution of the IOF resources (contract research requested by private partners, participation in the EC frame programme, patenting, creation of spin-offs). To this end, the postdocs are integrated in research consortia, which are usually composed of several research groups that are selected following open competition.

The following UA consortia are currently housing an IOF fellow: ADDN (Antwerp Drug Discovery Network), EMAT, UCAG², Pathophysiology, Organica, EGAMI, VaxInfectio and Enviromics.

Please follow this link to see an overview of all Methusalem holders, and also the five corresponding Centres of Excellence. By clicking on their names, you can find the webpages of each team.

The Flemish government launched the Odysseus programme to attract top researchers at foreign universities to come (back) and conduct research in Flanders. They may be internationally recognised full professors (group 1) or researchers with international prominence potential who have occupied a postdoctoral position abroad for at least three years (group 2). The principal aim is to compete in the European Research Area and to expand the Flemish knowledge economy by creating a favourable research climate.

The programme encourages researchers, in all scientific disciplines, who established their career (mainly) abroad, to pursue an independent research career at a Flemish university. Award holders are offered Odysseus financing for 5 years, allowing them to develop a research group. In addition to Odysseus financing, the professors are appointed as tenured academic staff (ZAP) or research professors (ZAPBOF) and postdocs are offered a postdoc position for 5 years.

The following Odysseus researchers and research projects are affiliated to the University of Antwerp:

The University Research Fund (BOF) is an internal earmarked fund that has been allocated by the Flemish authorities to the universities, which are obliged to further feed the fund with own resources (= 12% of the BOF grant they receive). The Research Council advises on the allocation of the BOF resources, which are applied to support ground-breaking fundamental research conducted at the university.

The University of Antwerp, on the advice of the Research Council, has created two BOF tools in support of research excellence: ZAPBOF and  ttBOF appointments awarded to academic staff members who have been entrusted with specific research duties and four-year research projects submitted by excellent research teams.
  
Research (ZAPBOF) professors are tenured academic employees who have been entrusted with an assignment consisting  either completely or almost completely of research activities along with restricted teaching duties (max. duration: 10 years). The funds to cover the labour costs related to these ZAPBOF appointments are transferred from the University Research Fund to the university’s operating budget. A ZAPBOF position assigned to a research unit considerably augments the unit’s research potential at senior level and creates better coaching and supervision conditions for the PhD students active in this unit. Newly appointed ZAPBOF research professors are subjected to the normal trial period.

UA – BOF – Regulations for BOF-financed tenure track and tenured academic staff members– version 2010

• UCSIA