Funding opportunities

Several funding programmes are available for young academics at the Göttingen Campus:

If you are part of the University, check out the Research Department, here and (for EU projects) here and Göttingen International for Education and Mobility programmes. If you are part of the wider Göttingen Campus see the GAUSS page. You may like to sign up to FIT (Forschung Internationales Transfer) which provides current calls from a range of funders. You can subscribe to FIT and select the type of calls and how often you want to be informed. Postdocs will also find this funding website useful - Research in Germany.

Upcoming Funding opportunities

Sorted by deadline

January 2020

  • Call for Applications: EUME Fellowships 2020/21– The Berlin-based Forum ‘Transregionale Studien’ invites researchers to apply for up to 5 postdoctoral fellowships for the academic year 2020/21 in the research program Europe in the Middle East—The Middle East in Europe (EUME). Deadline 4 January 2020
     
  • Minerva Fellowships enable Israeli and German scientists to complete a research residency for up to 24 months at institutions in the respective other country. The aim is to not only promote research but also cultural and scientific exchange.  Postdocs can build on their experience while conducting a research project at their host institution in Germany or Israel. Contact: Julia Lechler, deadline 15 January 2020.
     
  • Dorothea Schlözer Career Coaching– New call for 2020. Aimed at all female postdocs, junior research group leaders and junior professors of all disciplines at the University of Göttingen and the Göttingen Campus.The program supports you in your career planning and development and prepares you for an executive position in academia. Deadline: 31 January 2020
     
  • Postdoc Fellowships at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel 2021 – The Herzog August Bibliothek is a research institution in Lower Saxony whose medieval and early modern holdings form a unique archive. Their research focuses on processes of cultural translation, material culture and historical collection research. Two fellowships per year (Postdoc Scholarship or a short-term scholarship). Deadline 31 January 2020
     
  • ERA-Net Call for transnational, collaborative, inter-/transdisciplinary research projects on ICT-enabled agri-food systems – the program aims at bringing together researchers and engineers with actors from across the entire agri-food systems including farmers, SMEs, food processors, food retailers, consumers and the public sector in a multi-actor approach, to enable digital technology solutions for a transition towards sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. Closing date for pre-proposals submissions: end of January 2020

February 2020

  • ERC Consolidator Grants support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage where they may still be consolidating their own independent research team or program. Applicants should be between 7 and 12 years post PhD (see website for the detail) and must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal. Please contact your local finance contact for advice in the first instance - see funding contacts below. Deadline 4 February 2020
     
  • German-Israeli Minerva Schools in 2021– Up to €25,500 to bring together Israeli and German scientists from all disciplines (postdocs and PhD students in particular) through conferences and workshops with the aim of enabling first contacts, scientific exchange as well as interaction with select senior scientists. Applications should be not involve similar or identical topics or the same groups as previous ones. Deadline 7 February
     
  • Max-Eder Junior Research Group by the Deutsche Krebshilfe– for highly qualified early-career oncologists under 35 years old at the date of application who wish to establish their own independent working group and develop their scientific career. Deadline 11 February 2020
     
  • Mildred-Scheel Postdoc Program–funds early caeer doctors and natural scientists (PhD within last 10 years, unde 35 years old, permanent resident in Germany) to carry out clinically oriented basic oncology research or clinical cancer research abroad. Deadline 11 February 2020
     
  • Taiwan-German Collaboration in Research– The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) will fund joint research projects in the fields of mathematics and physics, geosciences, engineering and material sciences, and information sciences. (A further call for proposals, dedicated to the fields of chemistry, life sciences, medical sciences and management sciences, is scheduled for launch at the end of 2020 with a tentative deadline in February 2021.) Deadline 12 February
     
  • Herman Neuhaus Prize– recognises excellent postdocs and research group leaders at a Max Planck Institute who are conducting research in the fields of Biology and Medicine Section (BMS) or Chemical, Physical and Technical Section (CPTS) with the potential for application. The award is €25k and applicants must be within 7 years of finishing their PhD. Deadline 15 February
     
  • Joint Sino-German Research Projects 2020– The Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (MoST) has launched a new call for proposals in all fields of science. This initiative aims to bring together researchers from Germany and Taiwan to design and carry out collaborative research projects. Deadline 18 February
     
  • Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups in the Field of Artificial Intelligence Methods – The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) invites suitably qualified early career researchers in the field of AI to submit proposals to the Emmy Noether Programme. This call is aimed at individuals from a wide range of disciplines who specialise in the field of AI method development. Deadline 19 February
     
  • AHRC-DFG Cooperation in the Humanities– The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) together with the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) launch a bilateral call for collaborative research proposals bringing together Arts and Humanities researchers in the UK with Humanities (including Law and Linguistics) researchers in Germany to conduct joint UK-German research projects. Deadline 26 February
     
  • KlarText Prize for Science Communicationto promote dialogue between the public and researchers. You will need to write an article in German about your research in which you summarise the results of your dissertation in a comprehensible and exiting way for a non-scientific audience.  €5k prize money for each of the winners and publication of their science piece in the popular science magazine that comes with ZEIT, plus an invitation to a two-day science communication workshop in Heidelberg. Deadline 28 February

March 2020 and later

  • Deutscher Studienpreis for outstanding dissertations–an annual prize for outstanding dissertations, considering the social benefit of the results, in any discipline for graduates who received their PhD in 2019. Deadline 1 March
     
  • Computational Life Sciences BMBF initiative- to support the development of innovative methods and software instruments from bioinformatics, modelling and simulation for their use in life sciences.  The focus for this third round is machine learning for cancer research.  Deadline for outline proposal 19 March
     
  • Minerva Short-Term Research Grant–to fund German and Israeli scientists from all subjects to visit research partners and establish contacts with scientists in the respective guest country for one to eight weeks. The grants also allow scientists to participate in seminars and workshops particularly as guest speakers. Deadline 2 May

On-going

  • International Scientific Collaborations – MWK
    Every year Göttingen International Department applies to the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony for funding to promote scientific cooperation with foreign countries. The aim is to promote grants in particular to initiate and implement sustainable collaborative projects in research and teaching as well as fostering partnerships at university or faculty/department level. Contact: Katharina Schüssler. Deadline: on-going
  • Leopoldina Postdoc Scholarship
    Postdoctoral scientists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland who already show independence in natural science or medicine to conduct research abroad. Contact: PD Dr Andreas Clausing, Deadline: 4 times a year and applications can be submitted at any time.
  • Fritz Thyssen Foundation Research Stipends
    to support highly qualified individual junior scholars who received their doctoral degree one or two years ago. Funding in the following areas: history, language and culture; interdisciplinary field “image-sound-language”; state, economy and society; medicine and the natural sciences. Contact, applications can be submitted at any time and an answer is generally provided within 8 weeks.
  • TWAS – The World Academy of Sciences offers postdoctoral fellowships lasting from 6 months to 3 years, for scientists from developing countries who have recently earned their PhD. Several programmes and deadlines, check the link above for more details.
  • Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship– The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation provides sponsorship for research stays worldwide (length of 6 to 24 months for postdocs), for researchers from Germany in all disciplines and all career stages. Applicants choose an academic host from some 15,000 academics in the Humboldt Network abroad. Apply at any time, selection committee meetings in February, June and October
  • The Göttingen International Monthly Alert provides information about international and national calls for funding, for researchers and students. If you have any questions regarding a call, please get in touch directly with the organisers or respective institution. Read the Monthly Alert for July 2019 here and subscribe here.

  • Walter Benjamin Programme. This programme enables researchers in the postdoctoral training phase to independently conduct their own research project at a location of their choice for 2 years. The project can be carried out at a research institution in Germany or abroad, with the host institution providing support for the project. Applications can be submitted at any time. Frequently asked questions are here.  Contacts are subject-specific and can be found here.