The Volkswagen Foundation believes that transdisciplinary research is a promising way of tackling major future issues. In the following interview, team leader Adelheid Wessler explains how the Foundation wants to create new funding opportunities to help establish this methodological approach over the long term – alongside basic and discipline-defined research.

Funding is provided for workshops and summer schools which offer opportunities for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers acquire additional expertise, methodological skills, and knowledge about ways of working that are crucial for further development of the research field. Deadline: January 15, 2024

In the following statement, the Volkswagen Foundation reaffirms its commitment to the protection of democracy and academic freedom.

In the current call of the funding initiative "Open Up – New Research Spaces for the Humanities and Cultural Studies", the foundation is testing a new review process for the first time: "Distributed Peer Review". In this interview, Dr. Hanna Denecke, team leader in the "Exploration" profile area, explains the experiment.

Funding is provided for scientifically outstanding projects from the humanities and social sciences conducted jointly by researchers from Israel and Lower Saxony. Deadline: May 31, 2024

The funding initiative 'Open Up – New Research Spaces for the Humanities and Cultural Studies' aims at exploring new research spaces in the humanities and cultural sciences. Deadline: April 9, 2024