Research and Excellence

The Faculty is committed to promoting research and excellence and allocates financial resources for this purpose. Applications are not limited to certain topics or initiatives, but have to clearly serve the purpose of promoting third-party-funded activities, visibility, publication efforts or excellence in the key research areas of the Faculty. Financial support for projects that serve other purposes may be granted in justified individual cases. In particular, the Faculty encourages applicants to submit initiative proposals that serve to establish connections within and/or beyond this key research areas. For example, financial support may be granted for the organisation of a workshop / conference at the University of Vienna or the invitation of a guest researcher for the purpose of promptly (and verifiably) completing a project proposal. Financial assistance may be granted to a limited extent for activities within the framework of cooperation agreements between the Faculty and institutions abroad (‘faculty agreements’). Travel expenses incurred as part of personal travels and expenses for infrastructure or repairs are not eligible for funding as these are supported through other faculty measures. Furthermore, funding for publication costs (including open access) is in principle not eligible for funding. In addition, subsequent debits of flight costs from the financing cost centre or internal order of the University of Vienna for reasons of sustainability are not eligible (see the u:wiki “FAQs regarding sustainable business trips”). Any debits of costs from the financing cost centre or internal order via reverse charge are eligible for funding if the costs can be covered by the entire amount of funding granted by the Faculty. Therefore, any reverse charge should already be taken into account in any application for funding that involves the invitation of guests as part of the Faculty’s Promotion of research and excellence programme.

Every researcher who is permanently employed with the Faculty, furthermore, every tenure track professor, senior scientist, and senior lecturer who is temporarily employed, as well as every Univ.-Ass. Post-Doc and every project employee post-doc at the Faculty is eligible to submit one application per calendar year. There is no predefined funding limit; however, the financial resources available and possibilities of all are taken into consideration. As a general rule, funds are only granted on a pro rata basis (subsidy) and particular importance is attached to the presentation of the own contribution. Applications for less than EUR 500 will not be granted due to the administrative effort involved.

Please submit your informal application including a statement of reasons to forschung.fgga@univie.ac.at at least two weeks before the start of the intended initiative. Applicants must apply for a specific amount in euros. When submitting the application, applicants employed on a temporary contract must have at least another twelve months to run on their employment contract. In addition, the applicant must be able to complete the intended initiative by the end of their period of employment at the latest. Initiatives beyond the eligible employment period cannot be funded.

The applicant must settle their expenditures for the approved initiative via the subunit in a timely fashion (allowing the handling within the calendar year). The subunit finances the share of funding approved by the Faculty management in advance. Of the expenses actually incurred, the Dean’s office will refund up to the (maximum) agreed amount of funding to the global budget cost centre of the subunit following the submission of a half-year report.

If any additional costs are settled via other sources (e.g. via third-party funded projects), the applicant must notify this source in an informal manner that they were granted funding through the Promotion of research and excellence programme of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Geography and Astronomy and how much funding they received.

This is a translation. The only legally binding version of this text is the German version.