Our Funding Portfolio at a Glance

A great opportunity for junior researchers in all disciplines: The ‘Freigeist’ initiative is directed toward enthusiastic and charismatic scientists and scholars with an outstanding record: through a highly flexible funding scheme junior researchers are given the opportunity to enjoy maximum freedom in their early scientific career.

The funding initiative “Between Europe and the Orient – A Focus on Research and Higher Education in/on Central Asia and the Caucasus” was set up to support either projects that deal with current local developments or that are structurally anchored in the region.

The funding initiative entitled "Europe and Global Challenges" was set up to provide support for research projects predominantly in the humanities and the social sciences. It is required that, beside European scholars, the project involves researchers from at least one other region of the world.

The purpose of the “European Platform” funding initiative is to promote networking among young European researchers investigating at the boundaries of the cognitive neurosciences and the humanities and social sciences.

The funding initiative 'Experiment!' supports daring new research concepts in science and engineering, as well as in the life sciences including behavioural biology and experimental psychology through a fast and small grant scheme.

The Ewald Fellowships provide support for postdocs conducting cutting-edge research with free-electron lasers.

The funding initiative "Integration Molecular Component in Functional Macroscopic Systems" focuses on projects in the sciences, engineering and medicine linking up molecular or nanoscale units to form complex functional systems.

The initiative “Key Issues for Research and Society” addresses research groups in the Humanities, Cultural Studies and the Social Sciences who wish to investigate complex topics of high significance and relevance for society.

This funding initiative aims at extending and strengthening research in the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. The current call is entitled: Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities in Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa.

The Volkswagen Foundation combines support both for individual researchers as well as institutions via the funding initiative “Lichtenberg Professorships”. Outstanding (young) researchers are offered a tenure-track at a university of their choice in Germany, enabling them to carry out independent research in innovative and interdisciplinary areas for longer periods of time.

This funding initiative addresses outstanding researchers in the humanities and the social sciences. Disburdened from their usual academic obligations by a teaching substitute candidates shall have the opportunity to write an extensive scholarly treatise ("Opus Magnum").

This fellowship program addresses postdocs in the humanities who wish to spend a year researching in Germany or the USA.

The funding initiative “Research in Museums” addresses small and medium-sized museums with different thematic scopes wanting to carry out research on their collections.

Within the scope of this call the Volkswagen Foundation supports researchers in the humanities working in multilateral-cooperative research projects in the Arab world.

The Foundation provides support for interdisciplinary symposia, workshops, conferences, and summer schools in all subject areas.

The funding initiative entitled “University of the Future” was set up to support projects on structural innovation and to promote the internationalization of German universities. Objective