Our Funding Portfolio
The Volkswagen Foundation is dedicated to the support of the humanities and social sciences as well as science and technology in higher education and research. It funds research projects in path-breaking areas and provides assistance to academic institutions for the improvement of the structural conditions for their work.
Funding portfolio
We focus our funding activities on selected initiatives. By means of these initiatives, we endeavor to provide effective stimuli for research and to establish forward-looking topics.
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Circularity in daily life – Communication contest
The call is directed at transdisciplinary project teams of scholars and practitioners.
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area of research: all disciplines
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type of funding: science communication
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zukunft.niedersachsen: Research Cooperation Lower Saxony – Israel
Funding is provided for scientifically outstanding projects conducted jointly by researchers from Israel and Lower Saxony.
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area of research: humanities and social sciences (call 2024)
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type of funding: research projects
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Scoping Workshops
The Volkswagen Foundation’s scoping workshops are for scientists who want to take a step beyond their current research activities and think about the future of their field of research.
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area of research: all disciplines
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type of funding: workshops at the conference center Xplanatorium Herrenhausen Palace, Hannover
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zukunft.niedersachsen: Innovative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to combat rare diseases
The new funding offer within the framework of zukunft.niedersachsen is aimed at professors and postdocs at universities and non-university research institutions in Lower Saxony.
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area of research: rare diseases, personalised medicine, biomedicine, biotechnology, bioinformatics, data sciences
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type of funding: collaborative and individual projects
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Opus Magnum
The funding offer is aimed at outstanding professors from the humanities and social sciences.
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area of research: humanities, cultural studies and social sciences
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type of funding: funding of a substitute professorship
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Circularity with recycled and biogenic resources
The current call within the funding line 'Collaborative projects' of this initiative is primarily targeted at the natural sciences and engineering.
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area of research: natural sciences and engineering, if required social sciences
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type of funding: research projects
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Earth System Sciences
The offer is aimed at universities in Germany with a focus on geosciences that wish to establish one or two junior professorships with tenure track.
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area of research: Geosciences
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funding for: 1-2 junior professorships with tenure track per University location
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Challenges and Potentials for Europe: Intergenerational Futures
The call "Challenges and Potentials for Europe: Intergenerational Futures" is aimed at international research groups from the social sciences, cultural studies and humanities.