This instrument supports the acquisition of third-party funding at the RPTU in Landau, across all disciplines and qualification levels (for professors with a permanent contract up to a maximum of three years after appointment to the RPTU )The funds’ purpose is carrying out minor preparatory work for applications or to compensate for travel expenses incurred in preparing applications. Applications for start-up funding can only be submitted before the grant proposal is submitted to the funding agency; start-up funding for applications that have already been submitted is generally excluded.

Application documents to be submitted and funding amounts
 

Submission of a project/application outline with information on:

• Topic of the planned research project
• Brief description of the status of proposal preparation (in a few sentences)
• Planned date of application (max. ½ year after start-up funding)
• Indication of a Kostenstelle (TG 71, no third-party funding account) to which the funds (3.000 €) are to be allocated.
• Budget-Plan showing preparatory work is to be paid for with the start-up funds 
   

Special case of initial applications to the DFG:

• The funding amount here is restricted to a maximum of 4.000 €, for the proposal components see above.
• First-time applications must be declared in the DFG proposal.
   

Funding conditions

The final proposal to the DFG or another appropriate funding institution should be submitted no later than six months after the initial funding. The submission of the proposal must be evidenced by the submission of the confirmation of receipt from the funding institution.

Applications in this part of the research fund are processed in the order in which they are received (at the end of each month). Applications submitted jointly by several researchers will only receive start-up funding once.

Up to two applications are possible per person and year. Subsequent "transfers" from one applicant to another are excluded.
 

Start-up funding for two-stage procedures

In the case of two-stage procedures in research funding, especially at the BMBF and larger foundations (e.g. Bosch Foundation), a draft proposal, is submitted first. After the initial selection process, only those applicants with promising outlines are invited to submit a detailed proposal. This is intended to minimise the high amount of work involved in applications with few prospects.

Therefore, in the case of two-stage procedures, start-up funding is only provided once the applicants have been invited to submit proposals in the second stage. The preparation of the outlines is not funded.
 

Which funding sources are eligible?

The following list increases planning security for applicants and focuses support from the Research Fund on funding institutions with a high scientific reputation. Institutions that do not focus on scientific competition and funding from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate are excluded from start-up funding.

Applications to the following third-party funding bodies in particular are eligible for funding:

• DFG (only research proposals, no proposals for funding travel expenses, conferences, publication grants, etc., no resubmissions)
• BMBF (excluding the categories listed in the negative list below)
• DBU (German Federal Environmental Foundation)
• Volkswagen Foundation
• Thyssen Foundation
• EU applications (Research Framework Programmes)

Not eligible for funding:

• State funding (z.B. Projects of ministries)
• Cooperation projects with companies (contract research, also funding programmes of the BMBF and BMWi in which the promotion of corporate goals is the main focus)
• Applications for Scholarships
• Funding for conferences, travel expenses, publication grants, etc., even if these are submitted to the DFG or similar. A separate sub-fund (see under 4.) is available for conferences and events.
• Proposals for renewal and resubmissions
• Proposals in the first stage of a two-stage procedure
• Proposals that primarily serve teaching or the establishment of study programmes, etc.
• Project proposals that have been funded by other university funds cannot be funded by the research fund (i.e. no double funding).

Please send all documents summarised in one PDF file to the following address:

zgapl-anschub[at]rptu.de