Call for Projects "Support for Interdisciplinary Experimentation – ExperimentAthon” [OPEN]

CALL FOR PROJECTS – NEUROMOD INSTITUTE

Support for Interdisciplinary Experimentation – “ExperimentAthon”

1. Purpose

The purpose of this “ExperimentAthon” call for projects is to provide support for the development of interdisciplinary experimental work within the NeuroMod Institute. It primarily consists of allocating time from our research engineer hired for this purpose, but may also include limited financial support.
The call must be part of a project development process carried out by a consortium of individuals from different disciplines (within NeuroMod), in which the engineer will provide technical assistance.

The funded items therefore include:

• Kick-off meetings, with invitations to external experts if needed
• Training days / workshops
• Small equipment
• Operational expenses related to the project (internships, experimental sessions, etc.)
• Research engineer FTE (already included)

As an indication, this call for projects aims to fund projects between €3,000 and €5,000.
 

2. Background

To better foster and promote interdisciplinarity, it is essential to integrate it from the earliest stages of launching a new research topic. Currently, in many cases, the need for interdisciplinary collaboration only appears once the experimental protocol is defined and data collection has begun—reducing the potential impact (inadequate, unusable, or missing data, etc.).
It is therefore important that the design of the experimental protocol itself be carried out in an interdisciplinary manner, and thus upstream of data collection. To this end, NeuroMod has recruited an engineer to support the entire experimentation process—from design to final statistical analysis and publication. This type of profile, rarely available within the university, complements the support offered to researchers through this call for projects.
Main missions of the engineer:

• Assist with the design of experimental protocols
• Acquisition of experimental data
• Deploy software and hardware tools for recording, collecting, and transferring data from various devices
• Support research teams: user training, technical assistance
• Analysis and formatting of collected data (long-term storage, exploitation, etc.)

3. Rules and Evaluation

Any member of the NeuroMod Institute may submit a project and request support.
Requests will be evaluated by the technical & scientific committee described in section 7, based on the following criteria:

• Demonstrated need to implement an experimental protocol
• Structuring value of the experiment for the institute (interdisciplinarity)
• Capacity of the project to enhance research potential within NeuroMod themes (publications, project submissions, etc.)
• Multidisciplinarity: The project should not serve a single community, and at least two major themes of NeuroMod should be involved
• Feasibility and originality of the project
• The applicant team must be capable of taking over the experiment once the engineer’s mission is completed

4. Application Process

Applicants must present a research project including an experimental component, using following form: 

DOWNLOAD APPLICATION FORM 

Requests will undergo a rapid initial evaluation by the technical and scientific committee. Projects that are out of scope or require adjustments will need to be revised.

• “Small projects” (maximum one to two weeks of work) will be handled on a rolling basis.
• “Large projects” (more than two weeks of work) will undergo an upstream maturation phase (up to several days of engineer support) to properly evaluate required resources and propose improvements to the applicants. They will then be reviewed by the technical committee, which may rely on external evaluation when relevant.

5. Application

Fill in the response form and send it to the technical committee at: neuromod.aap.experimentation@listes.univ-cotedazur.fr 
 

6. Timeline

Open on a rolling basis for the 2025–2026 academic year.
 

7. Contact

For any request, please contact: neuromod.aap.experimentation@listes.univ-cotedazur.fr

Technical Committee (with voting right):

• Théodore Papadopoulo (Director, NeuroMod)
• Ingrid Bethus (Deputy Director, NeuroMod)
• Patricia Reynaud-Bouret (NeuroMod, CNRS, LJAD)
• Fanny Meunier (NeuroMod, CNRS, BCL)
• A representative of the “medicine” college
• Advisory opinions: Jérôme Emonet + other NeuroMod experts

Experimental Support Team: 

• Jérôme Emonet

With support when needed, depending on the project, from:

• Jenny Kartsaki (Inria Engineer)
• Gilles Scarella (CNRS Engineer, LJAD)
• Inria SED