Sneak Peek: ZD.B Junior Research Groups
It is a true pleasure to announce that the Bavarian ministry of Education, Science, and the Arts has accepted our funding programme to establish up to 10 independent junior research groups at the Center Digitisation.Bavaria. We’ve been working for nearly a year on the programme together with truly wonderful colleagues at the ministry; you might have even already seen press releases on the programme, but still, it is now that we are in the middle of the process of forming our expert review board for the evaluation of the applications so that I feel confident enough to start discussing our programme in public. Also, I am too excited and, to be honest, also too proud to keep the information on the funding programme disclosed any further whereby I’d like to provide a small sneak peek into the programme.
We will start the call for proposals in the second quarter of 2016. Subsequently, you find the most important key points of that programme to hopefully support you in adequately planning should you be interested in applying.
The programme for the establishment of the ZD.B junior research groups aims at promoting the early career scholars and their work on topics having a high relevance in the fields of digitisation. The grants will support up to 10 research group leaders having an excellent PhD (or equivalent) in establishing an independent research group working on innovative topics with a high practical and scientific impact and on hiring and supervising own PhD students. The programme shall provide young, excellent scholars with the possibility to pursue a long-term academic career.
The grant will be provided in a competitive process, based on the evaluation of a proposed research project, and features for each research group the following points:
- Extent: up to 250.000,- € per year
- Duration: (approx.) 2 years und further 3 years after successful intermediate evaluation
- Allocation at the ZD.B and additional organisational assignment to a Bavarian university (university or university of applied science)
- Possibility to hire and supervise own PhD students
- Possibility to represent their research / discipline in teaching (with no obligation)
The research groups will be in close interaction to each other. The ZD.B will further foster the interaction and collaboration with the scientific community and the Bavarian industry to actively support knowledge and technology transfer. The groups will finally be explicitly supported and encouraged to contribute to the Graduate School Digital.Bavaria (GSD.B), for example, by representing their topics as part of courses.