In an aim to foster institutional relations with universities, the European Investment Bank has established an EIB-Universities Research Action through which its activities in this area will be channelled. The initiative consists of three different programmes:
EIBURS: the EIB University Research Sponsorship Programme, which will provide grants to university research centres working on research topics and themes of major interest to the Bank. EIB bursaries, of up to EUR 100 000 per year for a period of three years, will be awarded through a competitive process to interested university departments or research centres associated with universities in EU, Accession or Acceding Countries, with recognised expertise in areas of direct interest to the Bank. The scholarship seeks to enable the chosen centres to expand their activities in these areas.
For its first year of operation, the EIBURS programme has selected four lines of research. These lines and the deadlines for presentation of proposals are the following:
- Financial and economic valuation of environmental impacts (23 May 2006)
- Technology assessment and acceleration of innovation (30 May 2006)
- Public-private partnerships (6 June 2006)
- Social dimensions of sustainable development (13 June 2006)
STAREBEI (STAges de REcherche BEI): a programme for financing young researchers working on joint EIB-university projects. The STAREBEI Programme supports the joint interests of university centres and EIB staff through the provision of traineeships to junior researchers interested in carrying out research projects proposed by the Bank under the joint supervision of a university tutor and an EIB tutor.
EIB University Networks: a sponsoring mechanism for university networks showing characteristics that are of particular relevance to supporting the objectives of the EIB Group. These networks should be cooperative associations for educational, research and development activities with a specific purpose. They will be used by the EIB as preferred vehicles for publicising the other two programmes and providing information about other research requests from the Bank's services. When appropriate, these networks will be entitled to use the EIB label in their promotion.
For more extensive information on these programmes and mechanisms, please visit the EIB-University Research Action homepage.