Fund for Scientific Research-FNRS (F.R.S – FNRS) – Belgium

The Fund for Scientific Research-FNRS (“The Fund”) is a Research Funding Agency that promotes and supports basic scientific research in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (formerly the French-speaking community of Belgium, abbreviated FWB). Founded in 1928, it mainly receives public subsidies. The Fund supports individual researchers on the basis of the criterion of excellence by offering temporary or permanent positions; provides funding to research teams; grants and credits as well as scientific Prizes. The Fund fosters research in all scientific fields, following a bottom-up approach of investigator-driven research. Further, the Fund supports researchers in an ever growing context of internationalisation through facilitating their mobility, allowing for collaborative transnational projects and supporting a high level international working environment. As a program owner, F.R.S.-FNRS is involved in several international and European initiatives such as ERA-Nets and Joint Programming Initiatives. Since October 2008, Dr. Ir. Véronique Halloin is the Secretary-General of F.R.S.-FNRS.

There is a strong competence in FET-related topics in FWB including in the topics that FLAG-ERA will address. This scientific expertise will help forming strong transnational research teams building on the complementarity between the FWB teams and other FLAG-ERA member teams.

F.R.S.-FNRS will participate in all work packages. This will enable the Fund to obtain an overview of all FLAG-ERA developments and outputs and to integrate these into WP7 on Communication and Dissemination. The Fund will take the lead of this WP while the staff involved has previous experience in communication and dissemination activities in a European framework.