2022 East Asian Core Observatories Association (EACOA) Research Fellowship Program

Introduction

To promote East Asian regional astronomy research cooperation, the East Asian Core Observatory Association (EACOA) encourages and supports highly qualified young researchers from all over the world to join and conduct joint research activities with colleagues at the EACOA member institutions.

The EACOA Fellowship is a research position at the postdoctoral level. One EACOA Fellowship will be awarded in 2022.

The EACOA Fellow is awarded a research grant and is expected to work full-time on research.

The Fellowship Program is administered for EACOA by the East Asian Observatory (EAO) and the EACOA Secretariat. Award to support the EACOA Fellow is made directly by the EAO.

I. Eligibility Requirements

1. EACOA Fellowship applicants can be of any nationality and must have obtained their PhD in Astronomy or related fields within 5 years prior to the expected start date of the fellowship.
2. An EACOA Fellow must be in residence in at least two different EACOA member institutions during his or her first three-year fellowship tenure and must spend at least one year at each institute.
3. Applicants must have sufficient conversational ability in English to prevent difficulties during their research activities at the EACOA member institutions.

II. Duration of Fellowships

The EACOA Fellowship is a 3–year appointment, subject to annual review and renewable for an additional 2 years, up to a total of 5 years.

Renewals for the fourth and fifth years will be based on a review of the annual report and require demonstration of significant research accomplishments.

Renewal requests will be reviewed by the EACOA Fellowship Program Committee and are subject to availability of EACOA funds and approval by the EACOA Directors' Council.

III. Host Institutions

During the period of appointment, an EACOA Fellow must be in residence in at least two EACOA member institutions located in separate regions of his/her choice out of four regions in at least one year at each of these host institutes. The Fellow should work freely in order to produce frontier sciences. The EACOA member institutions in each region and their URLs are shown below. An EACOA Fellow is not allowed to be in residence in institutions that are not shown below without a prior written approval by the EACOA member institute that hosts the EACOA Fellow.

China:

• The National Astronomical Observatories. Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC)
  http://english.nao.cas.cn/
• Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO)
  http://english.pmo.cas.cn/
• Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO)
  http://english.shao.cas.cn/

Japan:

• National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)
  https://www.nao.ac.jp/en/

Korea:

• Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI)
  https://www.kasi.re.kr/eng/index

Taiwan:

• Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA)
  https://www.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/

In case of uneven geographical distributions for recruited fellows, the EACOA Fellow Selection Committee will discuss with potential candidates to change their choice of Host Institution at the time of recruitment.

Regardless of the Fellows’ resident institutes, they have equal access to all research facilities run by the EACOA member institutions (subject to success of proposals for observation) and/or their archived data, e.g. 13.7m Submillimeter Telescope at PMO, ALMA, FAST, KVN, LAMOST, NEOST, SMA, Subaru Telescope TRMT and JCMT.

IV. Application Procedure

Applications should be submitted through the on-line submission site:
http://www.eacoa.net/job/

The EACOA Secretariat cannot entertain requests for waivers of the eligibility requirements and other conditions listed in the Fellowship Announcement, and will not respond to such requests.

All application documents must be received by November 15, 2021, at the latest.

V. Application Documents

Please combine items 1-5 in the list of application documents - A4 in size in pdf format - into one file and submit it through the online submission site:
http://www.eacoa.net/job/

• All documents must be type-written in English. Documents written in any language other than English are not accepted.
• Submitted applications which do not contain all of the required documents will be automatically rejected.
• The EACOA Secretariat reserves the right to request additional documents when necessary.
• All documents received will become the property of the EACOA, and will not be returned.

After receiving the application documents, the EACOA Secretariat will send an acknowledgement to the applicants. The EACOA Secretariat will not respond to individual inquiry concerning the status/arrival of application documents.

List of Application Documents:

1. Curriculum vitae
2. Brief summary of past research and/or instrumentation experiences
3. Future research plan
   Applicant should describe this document by oneself. This should include detailed information on the purpose, objective, methodology, contents, and schedule of the proposed research program. The research plan must be discussed in detail with the host scientists, and the planned content must be consistent with the research activities and facilities of the host institutions. Relevance to the EACOA member institutions research activities including theoretical, observational and instrumental research will be considered.
4. Letters of endorsement
   Applicants must arrange for their research plans to be endorsed by research staff members of the host institutions. The letters of endorsement must be obtained by the applicants and must be uploaded with the above mentioned other application documents. We encourage the intended applicants to contact researchers at the EACOA member institutions well in advance to discuss their research plans. Lists of contact addresses of research staff at EACOA member Institutions can be obtained at the aforementioned URLs.
5. Complete List of Publications
   This should include full details of each publication: paper title, list of authors, journal name and volume and page numbers, and year of publication. Please highlight the titles of the most important publications in red.
6. Names and contact information (i.e. e-mail addresses) of three references
   The reference letters should be submitted through the online application system by the referees themselves by the deadline of this application shown in Section IV.

VI. Screening & Notification of the Result of Application

1. Applications are reviewed by the EACOA Fellow Selection Committee based on academic achievements and excellence of the proposed research programs.
2. The results will be sent directly to the applicants (We expect it before the end of February, 2022 or earlier).
3. The NAOC, on behalf of the EACOA, will send a Grant Letter to successful applicants.
4. The EACOA does not issue announcements concerning the screening progress, or respond to inquiries concerning the status of such applications.
5. When the decisions of the EACOA Directors’ Council are announced, the EACOA will neither announce the reasons for the decision nor respond to individual inquiry concerning results.
6. The host institute will, upon the arrival of the successful applicants, send a notification letter to NAOC in order to start the payment procedure.

VII. Fellowship Stipend and Supports

The following financial supports are provided to successful applicants. Under no circumstances is any part of the fellowships transferable to any other persons or other items.

• For the year 2022 program, a monthly allowance of equivalent to US$5,000, will be paid as a fellowship award by the EACOA.
• Research fund equivalent to US$20,000 (exact amount may vary depending on the conditions and availability of the research funds of the host institute) per year will be provided by the host institute.
• Relocation expenses will be reimbursed by the EACOA, based on the actual cost for up to US$4,000.
• Additional supports for housing, travel, etc. may be available depending on the conditions set by the host institute.

VIII. Delay or Inability of an EACOA Fellow’s Arrival to the Host Institution

If arriving at the host institute is impossible for any reason beyond the fellow’s control such as injury or travel restrictions imposed by the government, he/she may discuss the remedy with the host researcher. The possible remedy may include the delay of the arrival date or staying at the location where the fellow currently resides and yet he/she will be appointed as the fellow. The remedy is subject to the approval of the host institution(s) and/or the EACOA Directors’ Council. The fellow is required to move to the originally planned institution as soon as arriving at the host institution becomes possible.

Email Addresses for Inquiries:

• [ASIAA]     [email protected]
• [KASI]        [email protected]
• [NAOC]      [email protected]
• [NAOJ]       [email protected]
• [PMO]         [email protected] (Dr. Lin Li)
• [SHAO]       [email protected] (Huihua Li)