With the 1000 Ideas Programme, the FWF provides funding for completely new, daring or particularly original research ideas that lie outside the current scientific understanding. The key aim is to investigate future-oriented research topics with high scientific and transformative potential.

Target group

• Qualified principal investigators- both established researchers and those at the beginning of their career(usually with a PhD/MD) - who work or want to work at Austrian research institutions.
• Formal applications are submitted by the Austrian research institution; there is no limit to the number of applications that can be submitted by a research institution.
• A principal investigator can only be involved in one project application. The FWF’s limit on the number of funded projects in other programmes does not apply to applications for the 1000 Ideas Programme.

Objectives

• Foster creativity, encourage risk-taking and facilitate the development of novel, innovative research domains;
• Focus on high-risk, original or transformative research at an early stage, which may be too premature to have very good chances of obtaining funding via existing grant programmes due to the unconventional design, lack of validating data and/or the high risks involved;
• Address visionary research ideas that cross disciplinary boundaries and/or are not yet the subject of debates in academic research and/or in society.

Requirements

• International scientific or scholarly publications
• During the course of the project, the principal investigator must be employed at least 50% at a research institution; this must be confirmed by the research institution. Funding of he 1,000 Ideas Programme cannot be used to finance this percentage of the PI's employment.
• In most cases, a completed PhD/MD at the time of submission
• Anonymous submission, i.e. it must not be possible to identity and career level of any researchers and cooperation partners (Austrian and international) or the names of any research institutions (Austrian and international) from the research proposal
• The research proposal must contain
• Summary, max. 1 page, which is understandable for a scientists from outside the respective discipline
• Reseach approach, max. 3 pages, a project description primarily addressing the project's transformative  potential and its scientific and scholarly basis
• Project implementation, max. 2 pages, a description addressing the planned realisation of the proposed research including a logical and step-by-step plan
• Risk assessment and learning potential, max. 1 page
• References, list of works cited (max. 15 references).
• The proposals received will be checked very rigorously with regard to form and anonymity, and proposals that do not meet the requirements will be returned without review.

Length

Minimum of 6, maximum of 24 months

Level

Minimum of €50,000 and maximum of €150,000. The following costs are eligible for funding: Personnel costs for the PI's position (up to 50%) as well as staff, material, equipment, travel, other costs and 5% general project costs. No funding is available for doctoral positions.

Application

The entire application must be submitted in English and it must be submitted via the FWF’s electronic application portal elane no later than January 16, 2024 (2:00 pm local time Vienna).

The final funding decisions will be made at the end of June 2024 on the basis of funding recommendations of the international 1000 Ideas jury. 

You can also submit applications for the 1000 Ideas program as part of the AI Mission Austria Funding Initiative.