Each year, ESF supports approximately 50 Exploratory Workshops across all scientific domains. These small, interactive group sessions are aimed at opening up new directions in research to explore new fields with a potential impact on developments in science. The workshops, which usually last 1-3 days, have a wide participation from across Europe and involve mature scientists as well as young, independent researchers and scholars with leadership potential. The relatively small scale (in terms of people involved) provides an ideal platform for focus on the topic and for all participants to contribute to discussions and plan follow-up collaborative work. Interdisciplinary topics are greatly encouraged.

The focus of the scheme is on meetings aiming to open up new directions in research or to explore emerging research fields with potential impact on new developments in science. Proposals should demonstrate the potential for initiating follow-up research activities and/or developing future collaborative actions. Interdisciplinary topics are encouraged.
Proposals may be submitted in any or across several of the following broad scientific fields:

– Biomedical Sciences
– Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences
– Physical and Engineering Sciences
– Social Sciences
– Humanities
– Science driven issues of Research Infrastructures in any of the above fields

The 2009 Call for Proposals is for workshops to be held between 1 February and 31 December 2010.
The deadline for submitting proposals is 30th April 2009, 16:00 CET.

For more information go to here.