Funding for postdoctoral researchers and habilitation candidates

FAU is particularly keen to recognize and encourage outstanding talents from the outset. The Emerging Talents Initiative (FAUeti) is aimed at helping excellent early career researchers apply for external funding. This should give early career researchers the possibility to promote an innovative project independently and extend their academic independence.

Purpose and extent of funding

ETI funding supports outstanding early career researchers by enabling them to submit an application to an external funding provider within the funding period (12 months)(e.g. DFG or ERC).

The maximum amount of funding that may be awarded is 15,000 euros. Within this budget, postdoctoral researchers may apply for any measures required to prepare their application for external third-party funding.

Target group

All postdoctoral researchers at FAU who gained their doctoral degrees during the last four years who have not completed their habilitation or an interim evaluation as part of an assistant professorship are eligible to submit an application. The program is not open to early career researchers at the Faculty of Medicine, as the Faculty offers similar programs of its own (e.g. ELAN/IZKF – first-time applicant program).

Call for applications

Calls for applications are issued twice a year for ETI, FAU’s internal funding program for early career researchers. We will let you know our decision on your application for funding approximately three months after the deadline for applications.

Further information on the calls for applications and the application procedure is available on the internal FAU website (IdM login).

Funding recipients

FAU is proud of its talents and its excellent early career researchers who have received ETI funding. A list of all ETI funding recipients at the Faculties is available below (German website).

Contact

If you have any questions about the Emerging Talents Initiative, you can contact eti@fau.de.

FAU’s Emerging Fields Initiative (EFI) aims to promote outstanding, preferably interdisciplinary research projects at an early stage and in a flexible and non-bureaucratic way. By applying for EFI funding, renowned FAU researchers can put visionary ideas into practice, allowing them to react more effectively to upcoming research challenges.

The first two rounds of EFI resulted in 18 ambitious projects from all five of the University’s faculties. FAU is currently funding these projects with a total of 12.4 million euros in funding.

It is possible to apply to the German Research Foundation (DFG) for individual funding for specific purposes.

• Grants
• Academic networks
• Research scholarships
• Emmy Noether program
• Reinhart Koselleck projects
• Clinical trials
• Early career researchers academy

The research representatives at the faculties are happy to advise you on this subject.

The European Union’s Marie Curie actions provide a range of opportunities for postdoctoral researchers to apply for funding for international projects.

The ERC awards Starting Grants to promising early career researchers to give them the chance to establish their own research groups and to independently pursue research projects with great innovative potential.

Detailed information is available from FAU’s Office of Third-party Funding and Related Legal Affairs, which is responsible for EU research funding.

Information on positions for postdoctoral researchers is available on the FAU job portal. From here, you can look for suitable positions in UnivIS by selecting the category Wissenschaftlicher Dienst and the appropriate faculty.

Please note that vacancies are often posted directly on chairs’ websites and therefore may not be listed in UnivIS. You can find an overview of the chairs on each faculty’s website:

• Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology
• Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Sciences
• Faculty of Engineering

Research institutes affiliated with FAU also post open positions:

• Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL)
• Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS)
• Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology (IISB)
• Helmholtz Association
• Energie Campus Nürnberg (EnCN)
• Leibnitz Association

Erasmus+ teaching mobility provides funding for guest lecturers at European partner universities in program countries which have a valid Erasmus Charter for Higher Education and some universities in specific partner countries.

This is an opportunity for some FAU professors to gain initial experience teaching in another country while working on their own research.

The position as a guest lecturer is usually filled by the coordinator named in the inter-institutional agreement as part of this program. If they do not wish to carry out the stay as a guest lecturer themselves, another person from the same subject may take their place, provided the partner university agrees, and may then apply for funding with the coordinator’s consent.

The DAAD offers a return fellowship for postdoctoral researchers who would like to return to Germany after spending time in another country.

Postdoctoral researchers should also take a look at euraxess Germany. which provides information for international researchers who would like to come to Germany for a research project or German researchers who are planning a research stay in another European country.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the DAAD offer fellowships for international postdoctoral researchers who are coming to Germany and researchers based in Germany who want to go abroad.

FAU’s Welcome Center supports international postdoctoral researchers with all organizational questions before they arrive and during their stay in Erlangen or Nuremberg. In addition, FAU’s Dual Career Service can provide assistance for partners of international postdoctoral researchers when looking for work.