Notification of  the application of Shenzhen Fundamental Research (General Program)

1. Supporting Areas

Fundamental research program (general program) of The Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (SZSTI) aims at cultivating innovative talents and encouraging scientists to conduct innovative research to achieve independent intellectual property rights and original results. General Program supports scientists to independently select research topics within the scope of funding of SZSTI to conduct innovative research. The research results include internationally referred journal/conference papers, book chapters, patents, etc.

2. Funding Amount and Duration

Maximum RMB 0.6 million per project for 3 years.

3. Eligibility

1). The applicant (project leader) must be a full-time employee of our university. He/she must undertake substantive tasks in the research project and should have at least one of the following qualifications,

1. senior academic rank (title);
2. doctorate degree;
3. Applicants with only intermediate professional and technical positions (titles) or master's degrees must be recommended by two professionals with senior academic ranks (titles).

2). If the applicant is a post-doctoral staff member, he/she must apply for a letter of commitment from the university;

3). If the project team consists of any member (including postgraduate students) who is not an employee of CUHKSZ, the following regulations should be observed

1. The number of collaborative partner is limited to 1 only in Shenzhen;
2. The official stamps of the partner and the collaboration agreement must be included in the application. The agreement should clarify the division of research tasks between the two parties, the distribution of funding and self-raised funding, and the ownership of intellectual property rights. The first and correspondence affiliation of any scholarly publications and IP rights derived from the project should be The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen);
3. The project team from CUHKSZ should undertake the majority of the research tasks and more than half of the funding should be allocated to CUHKSZ;
4. At least three of the first five members of the project team should be researchers from CUHKSZ;
5. If any enterprise is involved, the amount of self-raised funds shall not be less than the amount of funding allocated to the enterprise by the project, and a letter of commitment for self-raised funds shall be provided.

4. Application Process

1). Proposals must be submitted electronically through the SZSTI’s online system (https://sticapply.sz.gov.cn/).  For new applicants, RAO will create a user account for you. Please email RAO at xuyaqing@chku.edu.cn to get this set up before Feb 20,2021.  Please include their names, personal ID/passport number, email address and mobile phone numbers in the email. Colleagues already with an SZSTI system account can use their existing one.

2). Please upload the following application materials in the system(The copy shall be stamped with official seal):

1. Scanned copy of application signed and sealed
2. Project feasibility report (see Annex 2 for the template);
3. Intellectual property compliance statement (see Annex 3 for the template)
4. The letter of integrity signed by the project leader and the university (see Annex 4 for the template);
5. Certification of the applicant's doctoral degree or senior professional title, representative research results and related supporting materials in the past three years [thesis (title page), book (cover and table of content page), patents, high-level talent certificate, award certificates, etc.];
6. The employment contract of the applicants;
7. Shenzhen social insurance certificate of the applicants within recent one year（till January 2021）(for foreigners who do not have social insurance in Shenzhen, please provide sufficient proof to support the full-time employment status of the applicant.);
8. Supporting documents of research facilities including labs and equipment list related to the project (see Annex 6 for the template);
9. f it is a joint application, a collaboration agreement (with the official stamps of both parties and the signatures of the person-in-charge of both parties) should be provided;
10. If an enterprise is involved, a letter of commitment for self-raised funds should be provided;
11. If the applicant is a postdoctoral fellow, a letter of commitment should be provided (see Annex 5 for the template);
12. Ethics certificate (involving laboratory animals, animal experiments, and human biomedical research).

5. Points to note:

1). Restriction on the total number of projects:

1. One applicant can only apply for one SZSTI fundamental research project (general program or key program) in the same year;
2. Please note that the maximum number of SZSTI Science and technology projects (except platform and post subsidy programs) applied for and being undertaken (including hosting and participating) is limited to 3.
3. PI who has obtained the SZSTI Fundamental research key program last year is not eligible for application;
4. PI who are supported by the University stability support program of Shenzhen 2021 are not allowed to apply.

2). For new projects highly relevant to previous projects funded by Shenzhen or other organizations (such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation, Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, etc.), the relationship between the new application and previous ones should be clearly stated in the proposal. One proposal can only be submitted once by the applicant. Multiple and repeated submission is strictly prohibited.

3). The applicants should strictly comply with the national laws, regulations and ethics requirement  if their project involves issues related to scientific research ethics and technology security (such as clinical research, information security, etc.). For biomedical research involving animals and special medical research objects such as human subjects, the applicants are expected to provide the approval by relevant ethics committee of the university.

6. Deadline

Proposals must be submitted electronically through the SZSTI’s online system (https://sticapply.sz.gov.cn/) before 5 p.m. on March 8,2021, RAO will review it in due time.

Contact: Xu Yaqing (xuyaqing@cuhk.edu.cn)  23515209