Qualifications Portal of the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Once you finished your doctorate, you are eligible to apply for external research grants, in German called “Drittmittel”: Funds that do not originate from a university’s own budget, but from external (“third”) funders. During your time as a postdoc (and later on as a professor), these grants will be an important source of funding for your research. However, a grant proposal is a text genre that differs quite markedly from a scientific paper.

 

As a participant of this workshop, you will learn at first (more) about funding opportunities available to researchers in Germany, and about the service provided at the FSU to support you with your proposal.
 

The main part of the course then focuses on the skills needed to prepare a strong grant proposal. We will discuss e.g. the use of language and ways to structure complex information concisely; we will reflect on a reviewer‘s perspective, selection procedures and peculiarities of scientific disciplines; we will practice how to draft a convincing project description and a reasonable work programme.

 

Please note: This course is designed for early postdocs and for PhD candidates in a late stage of their doctorate, planning a postdoc funding.
 

Requirements: To participate, you must have at least one idea for a research project on your mind that you can use in the practical exercises. Of course, the workshop requires all participants to maintain collegial confidentiality about the project ideas discussed here.

Trainer: Dr. Anika Höppner (Service Centre Research and Transfer, Friedrich Schiller University)