SFI Principal Investigator Career Advancement Award (PICA)

The SFI Principal Investigator Career Advancement (PICA) Programme supports outstanding researchers returning to active research after either a prolonged absence, or those within the early consolidating stages of their independent research career. PICA has been integrated into the Principal Investigator programme. PICA applicants must be eligible under all of the standard PI criteria, (with the exception of the publication number requirement in Categories 1 and 3). In addition, to be eligible under the PICA-specific criteria, the applicant must fall into one of the following categories:

Category 1: Any applicant who has taken consecutive documented eligible leave (minimum 18 weeks) since 1st January 2003 and have since returned to work. This can include, but is not limited to, the examples below.

Documented maternity leave of less than 18 weeks will be considered upon receipt of a valid birth certificate.
In all cases, applicants wishing to be considered under the above criteria must be able to produce documentary evidence of their eligibility from their host institution’s Human Resources Department or, where applicable, the HR Department of their employer at the time of their eligible leave(s).

Category 2: Permanent or contract academic staff who have returned to an academic research position since 1st January 2006, having worked for a minimum of 2 years in a science or engineering-related industry.

Category 3: It is recognised that some early-career-stage independent investigators may have an excellent publication record evidenced by high-quality publications. Therefore, SFI will consider grant applications from exceptional investigators provided that they are 8 to 12 years post-Ph.D., and have 5 or more publications of excellence.

Applicants, therefore, who received their degree between (including) 1999 and (including) 2003 are eligible.  This relates to the year printed on the official Ph.D./M.D. certificate

Applicants funded under the PICA programme will in all respects be SFI Principal Investigators, as defined in this document, and consequently will have all of the rights and responsibilities of an SFI Principal Investigator.

In order to allow enhanced focus on research activities, successful PICA applicants under Category 1 will be entitled to request funding for teaching buyout of up to 50% of their teaching load for a period of up to 24 months from the start of their grant.  Such a request must be made at the time of application, and should be included in the budget and detailed in the budget justification.  Requests for teaching buyout post-application will not be entertained by SFI. The teaching buy-out component only applies to those within Category 1.

Please note that PIs who have previously been funded under the SFI PICA programme are not eligible to apply for PICA status again. This is a once-off career advancement award.

Individuals who previously applied but were unsuccessful under PICA can re-apply under PICA for this call, if eligible, according to the categories above.

As PICA has been integrated into the SFI Principal Investigator programme, please see the PI Programme webpage for further information.