GRADUATE

ACADEMY

Humanities, Economics and Sciences

Gerda Henkel Foundation

Center of the sponsorship is the promotion of German and foreign scientists in historical humanities.

Herbert and Elsbeth Weichmann Foundation

The Foundation promotes research projects on political exile with various benefits for printing, travels to archives, events etc. (Website only available in German)

Max-Weber-Stiftung

The Max Weber Foundation is the largest research organization in the humanities. The Max Weber Institutes are located solely outside Germany and offer a variety of doctoral and postdoctoral programmes.

Natural Sciences and Medicine

Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung

The foundation is offering funding for junior group leaders (medicine, biology or chemistry) who want to sharpen their research profile.

Dr. Manfred Plempel Fellowship

The fellowship by German mycological foundation offers young mycologists a research stay with focus on diagnostic basic research at a recognized mycologic institution. (Website only available in German)

European Molecular Biology Organization

The European Molecular Biology Organization is awarding fellowships (pre- and postdoc) to life scientists, including the young-investigators-award, the installation grants or lecture grants.

European Physical Society (EPS)

The Society is awarding several prizes, both to junior and to senior physicists.

German Society for Immunology

The German Society for Immunology is awarding several prizes each year to immunologists, including three postdoc prizes.

Human Frontiers Science Programme (HFSP)

The Human Frontier Science Programme is funding novel, innovative, and interdisciplinary research approaches regarding the complex mechanisms of living organisms and has a special postdoctoral fellowship programme.

Leopoldina-Postdoc Fellowship

Each year, the National Academy of Natural Scientists promotes graduated scientist from science and medicine with a distinguished research profile with 20 Leopoldina Postdoc Fellowships.

Liebig Fellowships

The Liebig Fellowships by the Fonds of the Chemical Industry (FCI) is supposed to promote the start as a professor in chemical sciences.

Louis-Jeantet Foundation

Each year, the foundation is spending ca. 4 million CHF on biomedical research and is awarding the Louis Jeantet Young Investigator Career Award as support of junior biomedical researchers in Europe.

Schram Foundation

The foundation is awarding funding for brain research projects, especially independent junior scientists who plan to do risky projects in medicine and neuro sciences.  (Website only available in German)

All Disciplines

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

The foundation runs “incoming” and “outgoing” funding programs for postdocs, junior group leaders, and senior scientists.

ERC Starting Grants

Every year, the European Research Council (ERC) is supporting junior scientists with ERC Starting Grants.

Marie Curie Fellowships

The Marie Curie Fellowship is a scholarship programme of the commission of European Union that aims to encourage the exchange of researchers and their mobility within the European Union. Especially for postdocs these scholarships may be very useful for the further development of their professional career.
Via the German National Contact Point for Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions webinars and advice for grant proposal writing is offered also in English.

Daimler and Benz Foundation

Each year, the foundation is awarding ten two-year fellowships to postdocs, junior professors or junior research group leaders at German universities or German research institutions, endowed with a sum of 20,000 Euros per year. It is open to all disciplines.

DFG

The DFG (German Research Foundation) is the self-governing organisation for science and research in Germany. The DFG funds the best scientists and academics and pays particular attention to the promotion of young researchers and equal opportunities in the German research system.

Career Paths in the Emmy Noether Programme and the Heisenberg Fellowship

Einstein Foundation Berlin

The foundation is funding research projects involving several individual projects and/or research institutions in Berlin as well as scientists working in Berlin. It also offers a special postdoc programme.

Fulbright

Postdoctoral researchers (professors, lecturers, postdocs) can apply to Fulbright Germany for a travel grant in the research and teaching program all year round. Three to twelve month teaching or research stays in all disciplines at scientific institutions in the USA are funded. You can apply at any time - at least six months before your planned departure for the USA.

Fritz-Thyssen Foundation

The foundation is focusing on humanities, medicine and natural sciences and promotes young postdoc scientists.

Robert-Bosch-Stiftung

The foundation runs several fellowship programs for young managers and young leaders in science. The two-year program “Fast Track”, for example,  is addressing female postdocs pursuing a career in academia and aims at teaching them the necessary skills to plan their careers strategically.

Society in Science - The Branco Weiss Fellowship

Each year, the foundation is awarding up to ten fellowships for postdocs in the natural sciences, engineering, and the humanities, who would like to focus on interdisciplinary topics dealing with import social, cultural, political or economic issues.

Volkswagen Foundation

The Volkswagen Foundation promotes junior scientists in various disciplines, f.x. with a postdoc funding programme for humanities scholars, with the Ewald fellowships postdocs within Free-Electron Laser Sciences (last call in 2015) or with the funding initiative "experiment" which supports new research concepts in science and engineering, as well as in the life sciences.

Walter Benjamin Program

By securing funding for their own research project, particularly qualified postdoctoral researchers pave the way for the next stages of their increasingly independent research career and exercise autonomy. The programme thus promotes early research careers with the aim of fostering the mobility and thematic development that are crucial in this career phase; therefore, the programme generally requires that the applicant change his or her research institution.

Only postdoctoral researchers at an early career phase are eligible to apply to this programme. The project may not be based at an entity that is for-profit or that does not permit the publication of findings in a generally accessible form.

Proposals may be submitted at any time.