Use Case Submission Call for 2024

The NFDI4Microbiota Use Case call for 2024 opens soon.

Submit your application from 2023-12-18 until 2023-01-31

Aim of the NFDI4Microbiota Use Cases

The mission of NFDI4Microbiota is to facilitate and stimulate data sharing according to the FAIR principles to ensure easy, open and efficient access to microbial research data and their associated metadata. An important measure to achieve this goal is to implement Use Cases. These are scientific projects in the broad field of microbiology research that are performed at partner and participant institutions with the involvement of one or multiple additional stakeholders (e.g. single institutions, research consortia, societies). Use Cases should help to

test and fine-tune solutions developed within NFDI4Microbiota based on ongoing scientific projects and generate scientific results or reusable tools.
bring the expertise of several stakeholders involved in the Use Cases together to create elaborate solutions that can be easily adapted by other research projects to make their work more efficient.
nurture ideas for the consortium to implement additional measures to address newly detected needs.

The activities taking place in a Use Case are either funded via NFDI4Microbiota core funding or happen as in-kind contributions. In case there is a need for resources beyond this, partners and participating institutions can apply for Flex Funds to further support a Use Case.

Eligibility Requirements

Eligible projects must be related to the field of microbiology and must contribute to the objectives of NFDI4Microbiota. Projects should ideally be related to a specific task area or measure of the NFDI4Microbiota work program. Details of the NFDI4Microbiota work program can be found on our web portal.

Purely scientific research projects are not eligible.
Use Case project leads do not receive direct financial funds from NFDI4Microbiota but will be supported by our partners. The support possibilities will be evaluated on a case-to-case basis.

If your project requires substantial financial support, please check the eligibility requirements for our Flex Funds. For our active Use Cases, we offer the provide a recommendation letter as supplement to your Flex Fund application.

General Procedure

Timeline

timeline

Application process

The call opens 2023-12-18 and closes 2024-01-31.
Applicants can send their filled submission form to mmagel@ukaachen.de

All document links can be found at the bottom of the page.

Be aware that by submitting your Use Case application form, you are accepting the terms and conditions as specified in the document.
As part of your submission and potential acceptance as a Use Case, we ask you to block certain events in your calendar ahead of time. For this, please check the section below on procedures for accepted Use Case projects.

Projects are evaluated and ranked by the NFDI4Microbiota Use Case Review Board (UCRB) based on a set of predefined criteria. These criteria are evaluated each year and may include the following:
- Linked to the NFDI4Microbiota proposal (Objectives and task areas/measures)
- Relation to NFDI4Microbiota topics
- Synergies with NFDI activities
- Relevance and benefits
- Approach and feasibility
- Overall evaluation
The NFDI4Microbiota Use Case Review Board and the Board of Directors will select eligible Use Case projects. Results of the review process will be communicated until 2024-02-19.
In the meantime, all interested parties are cordially invited to attend NFDI4Microbiota’s virtual 6th Community Workshop on 2024-02-05 to learn more about our services and training offers to the broad scientific research community. More information will be available on our Event page.

Procedure for accepted Use Case projects and their project leads

As an accepted Use Case, you will receive a notification with more information about the following meetings and the commitments as a Use Case. More information about the latter can be found in the Use Case Handbook. Nonetheless, we ask you to block the certain events in your calendar ahead of time.

Attendance at the virtual Onboarding call: 2024-02-27 from 13:00 – 14:00
Present your Use Case in a Virtual Flash Talk to our community and our Ambassadors: 2024-03-04 from 09:00 – 10:30
For your Use Case specific page, we will need a draft of the your webtext and a draft for your graphical abstract. The templates can be found below. The Measure M1.7 team will assist in finalizing and creating your subpage. Due date for your input: 2024-03-15

Reporting and controlling

To ensure steady communication between the Use Cases and NFDI4Microbiota, we implemented the following reporting and controlling strategies. By submitting your application, you commit to the following deliveries:

Annual report
NFDI4Microbiota conference attendance
End of project summary/ User stories/ community guidelines & recommendations
Strongly encouraged: Workshop organization

More information about these deliveries can be found in the Use Case Handbook.

Contact details

Your contact persons are Prof. Thomas Clavel and Maja Magel. For questions about Use Cases in general, please reach out to us through the helpdesk contact form under the issue “Use Cases”.

Files for download

Files for your submission

Download Use Case Handbook for more information: Use Case Handbook
Download Use Case 2024 Submission Form: Submission Form .docx or as Submission Form .odt
Applicants can send their filled submission form to mmagel@ukaachen.de

Files after acceptance

Template for the web-text of your individual Use Case page: UC webpage.docx or as UC webpage.odt
Template for your graphical abstract:
Consent form to display your personal profile picture on the webpage (optional): Consent form profile photo
Template for presentations and poster: