Postdoc Award & Incentive Funding

Deadline for submission: June 15, 2020

A Postdoc Award will be established at the Faculty of Psychology. The aim of this instrument is to support research projects, for the purpose of profile building and to promote the independence of the young academic postdocs. The aim is to enable the funded persons to independently initiate a (possibly first) independent project and to carry it out within the framework of their existing employment.
The term "project" is deliberately broadly defined; it can refer directly to the performance of full-fledged empirical studies at the University of Vienna itself or at an external research institution, as well as to concrete preparatory work for a project application, such as the collection of pilot data, networking with project partners, as for example in the context of a research stay with them.

Funding and time frame

The Postdoc Award of the Faculty of Psychology is awarded twice a year, on July 15 and February 15, respectively; at the same time the respective project is to be started. A maximum of € 5.000,- can be awarded per project in each award round, a total of € 20.000,- is covered by the budget of each round. Depending on the budgetary possibilities and on the result of an evaluation of the funding measure, which will take place after six award rounds, the Postdoc Award is planned to be established on a long- term basis.
At least 50% of the funds made available in a round of awards will be awarded to female applicants. Should this reserved funding amount not be fully utilized in one round, it will be carried over to the next round once. In addition, preferential support will be given to persons with special care obligations for children or persons with special care needs (through preferential funding in the case of two applications of equal quality).

Eligible costs

Funding can be provided for material costs, fees for test persons, personnel costs such as work contracts, employment of research assistants, specific software and hardware directly related to the project (if not available from central funds), organization of conferences/workshops at the University of Vienna, travel expenses (exclusively for networking with project partners or stays to carry out the project); the salary of the applicants is not eligible for funding.

Application criteria

• Independence of the research project: Applicants must plausibly demonstrate that the submitted project is an independently initiated project. Without the funding, it would not be possible or would be difficult to carry out the project; co-financing from other funding sources is possible, but the project is independent of other projects, and in carrying out the project, the applicant take on the role of project leader (and thus make all essential decisions independently, but optionally in consultation with other project partners; it is preferred that the postdoc mentor or supervisor only acts as a mentor, but not as a cooperation partner and co-author, in order to promote the career and visibility of the independence).
• Contribution to sustainable career planning and development: The concrete contribution to (sustainable) career promotion and scientific development must be made visible and must go beyond the aspect of (possibly first-time) taking over primary responsibility of a project.
• Funding will not be provided for the completion or additional funding of existing, ongoing projects; a corresponding declaration must be made explicitly in the application.

Eligible applicants

• Eligible for funding are all employees of the Faculty of Psychology with a Ph.D./Doctorate, who have an ongoing employment contract with the Faculty of Psychology as "Post doc" (financed by global budget or third-party funds), "Senior Lecturer", or "Senior Scientist", and whose contract term allows the completion of the project within the project funding period. Staff members with unlimited contracts (including tenure track postdocs and assistant professors) are excluded from the application.
• Supervision/care obligations: if supervision/care obligations exist, they must be informally and plausibly explained in the application.

Funding period

• The duration of the project is fixed for one year, but may be longer in exceptional cases and with good reason (up to 3 years). A project timetable must be attached to the application.

Application for funding

• The application must be submitted as a PDF file by e-mail to the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Psychology (drittmittel.psychologie@univie.ac.at). Contact person* for scientific aspects: Vice dean*in for junior staff matters, Claus Lamm, for administrative aspects: Dean's Office Director*in Christian Böck; deadlines for submissions are January 15 and June 15, 12 noon; the first submission is set for June 15, 2020.

Content of the application

• Scientific project description (max. 1800 words): project outline, including work program, time schedule (including confirmation that the project duration is within the period of employment), financial plan (maximum application amount: € 5.000,-)
• Curriculum vitae (freely selectable format, but in any case mentioning previous academic career, current employment, previous third-party funded projects, and publications)
• Independence and differentiation from other research activities: max. 250 words, including explicit self-declaration that independence of the project exists
• Contribution to career development: max. 150 words
• Confirmation (informal) from the immediate supervisor(s) that the project can be carried out at the immediate supervisor's place of work in case of promotion.
• Application language: English

Award Criteria and Mode of Award

• The award criteria are scientific quality (40% weighting), independence (35%) and contribution to career development (25%).
• The decision is made by a committee consisting of members of the four institutes as well as the faculty management, which rotates every one year and can obtain external expert opinions on a case-by-case basis. In the event of bias in an allocation round, the respective members are replaced by other representatives from the institute or faculty management.
• There is no legal entitlement to funding. A rejected project can be revised and re-submitted once.
• Only one application per applicant* per award round and person will be considered
• The award can be received a maximum of two times. If funding is currently available (at the time of the award), no new submission is possible in the relevant award round.
• Partial funding of awards is possible
• A short report and a statement of account must be submitted no later than 2 months after completion of the project
• Any funding budget not used up on a grant date will be carried over to the next possible grant date, and the funding budget available for the respective date will be announced.