Call Announcement

Thank you for your interest in the NEW OSH ERA Call. Altogether 15 proposals were submitted by the deadline and 8 proposals were selected to proceed to the Second Stage. The selected consortia will be informed by the Call Steering Committee

Call Announcement
 

 The NEW OSH ERA Consortium is pleased to announce the first

NEW OSH ERA joint call for research proposals
on psychosocial risks at work

1. Background

2. Objectives 

3. Themes

4. Eligibility

5. Submission of proposals

6. Selection procedure and criteria

7. Funding

8. Timeframe / Deadlines

9. Supporting documents

10. List of national funding organisations/research institutes contributing to the Call and contact persons

11. Helpdesk

    
     

1 Background

NEW OSH ERA “New and Emerging Risks in Occupational Safety and Health - Anticipating and dealing with change in the workplace through coordination of OSH risk research” is a project funded under the ERA-NET scheme in the context of EU’s ‘Integrating and strengthening the European Research Area’.

NEW OSH ERA is an association of more than twenty funding organisations and research institutes in the field of occupational safety and health. It aims to increase the overall scale, effectiveness and quality of research into new and emerging risks through coordination of OSH research in Europe, in particular by developing a joint research programme involving common priorities, coordinated implementation and joint evaluation.

More information about NEW OSH ERA and NEW OSH ERA partners can be found on www.newoshera.eu.

2 Objectives

Globalization, increasing competition, introduction of new technologies, restructuring and changing work organisation are changing the world of work at an increased pace. The changes also affect the psychosocial work environment producing new psychosocial risks which can result in increased stress levels.

Work-related stress has the potential to negatively affect an individual's mental and physical health, as well as an organisation's effectiveness. Mental health problems and other stress-related disorders are recognised to be among the leading causes of early retirement from work, absenteeism, overall health impairment, and low organizational productivity.

Psychosocial risks at work have been defined by the NEW OSH ERA Consortium as one of the thematic priorities for its joint activities.

The objective of this joint call for proposals for research projects on psychosocial risks at work is to promote European research in this field taking a proactive and innovative approach to developing solutions for a sustainable working life. 

3 Themes

The first NEW OSH ERA joint call will focus on psychosocial risks at work. Proposals should address one or more of the following issues:

1. Leadership and company culture in relation to employees´ wellbeing/health
2. Restructuring and changes in the world of work in relation to employees´ wellbeing/ health
3. Work-related psychosocial factors and health disorders

For more information on research themes please read the Description of research themes

4 Eligibility

A minimum of three NEW OSH ERA partner countries for application are required. Applicants from other European countries and from outside Europe are welcome to participate on the basis of self-financing.

The eligibility rules and funding principles will follow the regulations of the national funding organisation (see chapter 7) to which the application for funding is submitted. The applicants are advised to contact the national funding organisation for further information on eligibility.
Applicants participating on the basis of self-financing are advised to contact the Call Secretariat for further information.

5 Submission of proposals

The proposals must be completed in English.

The submission will follow a two-stage procedure. The proposals, both First Stage and Second Stage, must be submitted through the Electronic Proposal Submission System (EPSS), through the following link https://proposals.etf.ee/newoshera. 

Deadline for the submission of First Stage Proposals is 30 June 2009.

Please find further details in the Guide for applicants.

6 Selection procedure and criteria

During the first stage, the proposals will undergo an eligibility check and a relevance check by the individual funding organisations. This is done to ensure that

• the applicants are eligible,
• proposals are complete,
• the proposals have been submitted by a sound research consortium and
• the proposals are relevant to the themes of the call and match the national priorities.

The Call Steering Committee will select the proposals to be invited to submit the second stage proposal.

During the second stage, a scientific evaluation will be conducted by an independent Evaluation Panel, which will evaluate the quality of the proposals based on the following criteria:

• Scientific excellence
• Implementation
• Impact
• European added value

7 Funding

Funding will be provided for a period of twenty-four to thirty-six months.
Each consortium partner is requested to apply individually for national funding.

Funding contracts will be concluded directly between the each consortium partner and the national funding organisations based on the rules of the national funding organisations. The funding granted will be managed by the national funding organisation.

Funding organisations:

The following research institutes participating in the call will be contributing to the funding in terms of person-months (pm), i.e. they commit themselves to fund their own researchers in case that they are part of a winning consortium:

8 Timeframe/Deadlines 

Submissions received after the deadlines will automatically be rejected.

9 Supporting documents

• Guide for applicants
• Description of research themes
• Glossary

10 List of national funding organisations/research institutes contributing to the Call and contact persons

The following list shows the participating national funding organisations with their contact persons:

Finnish Work Environment Fund, FWEF, Finland
Ilkka Tahvanainen, ilkka.tahvanainen@tsr.fi

Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, BAuA, Germany
Henrietta Orban, orban.henrietta@baua.bund.de

German Social Accident Insurance, DGUV, Germany
Joachim Herrmann, DGUV.Forschungsfoerderung@dguv.de

Italian National Institute for Prevention and Safety at Work, ISPESL, Italy
Maria Castriotta, maria.castriotta@ispesl.it
Paolo Montanari, paolo.montanari@ispesl.it

Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, MINSZW, Netherlands
Eric van Luijk, EvLuijk@MINSZW.NL

Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, FAS, Sweden
Carin Håkansta, carin.hakansta@fas.se

The following list shows the participating research institutes with their contact persons:

Central Institute for Labour Protection - National Research Institute, CIOP-PIB, Poland
Beata Oleszek, beole@ciop.pl

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, NRCWE, Denmark
Søren Thor Larsen, stl@arbejdsmiljoforskning.dk

Hellenic Institute for Occupational Health & Safety, ELINYAE, Greece
Theoni Koukoulaki, koukoulaki@elinyae.gr

Hungarian Institute of Occupational Health, OMFI, Hungary
Zsófia Mozsolits-Balog, mozsolits@omfi.hu

11 Helpdesk

Any queries related to the Call should be addressed to the Call Secretariat:
sas@osha.europa.eu, orban.henrietta@baua.bund.de

Assistance for applicants who have difficulty in submitting their proposal via the Electronic Proposal Submission System can be found at:
newoshera@etf.ee