heiDOCS Project Grants – Apply now!

Application deadlines are February 15, June 15 and October 15 of every year. You must submit a complete application by the relevant deadline in order to be considered for funding. Please note that this also applies if the deadline falls on the weekend or a public holiday.

The awards notifications will be sent out about 8 weeks after the deadlines.

a) Data sets, data acquisition, project-related materials

You must apply for the project grant before the purchase has been made. Grants cannot be awarded retroactively for data sets, data acquisition, or materials that have already been acquired.

Please note the following important point:

For budgetary reasons, the grant cannot be paid out directly to you. The grant payment takes place directly between the invoicing party (your selected service provider) and the Graduate Academy, i.e. the Graduate Academy will settle the invoice directly with your service provider (in the approved grant amount).

We therefore explicitly ask you to take this into account with regard to the deadlines and the following approximately eight-week review period.

Example:

You would like to apply for a project grant for purchasing a data set with the application deadline of February 15. You already have an offer from a data provider and you plan to purchase the data in mid-may (after the funding decision is announced). In case of a positive funding decision you can then directly submit the invoice to the Graduate Academy after you purchased the data set. Payment to the provider will be initiated after the Graduate Academy has reviewed the documents.

b) External evaluation

The visit of your external evaluator should take place within 8 months after the relevant application deadline. Please submit your application considering the desired dates and the corresponding deadline:

If the visit of the external evaluator does not take place within this period, you must submit a request for extension outlining the reasons for the delay in order to continue the grant.
 

Important:

• Direct payment of the publication grant to you as the applicant is not possible for budgetary reasons at Heidelberg University.
• We will not consider applications submitted after the deadline or incomplete applications. An application is incomplete if documents are missing or if significant information is missing from the application form.

The following criteria are decisive for the selection process:

• academic qualification of the applicant
• quality of the research project
• relevance and necessity of the project grant for the qualification phase
• supervisors' evaluation

The grants will be awarded by a selection committee of the Council for Graduate Studies (CfGS) / a selection committee appointed by the CfGS. If necessary, the faculty will be consulted.

Yes. If you apply for more than one project grant - for example for a data set and external evaluation at the same time, you need to submit a complete and separate application for each initiative.

Please note that the maximum amount that can be awarded within the project grant funding line amounts to a maximum total of 1,000 Euro over the course of your entire doctoral training.

Yes. Every doctoral candidate may receive grants within the heiDOCS program amounting to a maximum total of 2,500 Euro over the course of his or her entire doctoral studies. This limit applies to the heiDOCS funding lines "travel grants", "publication grants" and "project grants".

Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to automatically notify each applicant that their application has been received. If you want to check on the status of your application, please send an email to: ga-docs@uni-heidelberg.

Please note that we will not consider incomplete applications.

The awards notifications are sent out after the entire evaluation process is completed; this process takes about 8 weeks after each application deadline. It is not possible to inform you about the results of your application before all evaluations are completed.

If your application is approved, the grant cannot be paid directly to you due to budgetary reasons. Instead, the Graduate Academy will pay the invoice(s) directly to the service provider. In order to coordinate our financial planning, it is important for us to know approximately when an invoice will be issued because invoices are often issued with a payment period of 14 days or less. Please simply indicate the expected date of the invoice (at very least the month and the year) in the online registration form.

Please be aware that invoices cannot be paid during the 8 week application assessment period because the awards decisions are not finalized at this point. Therefore, if the due date of your invoice falls in this assessment period, it will not be possible to approve your grant.

Your application will be reviewed by evaluators who are both from your research field as well as outside your field. Therefore, it is important to present your project in a way that can be understood by experts who are unfamiliar with your field.

Please fill out the application form electronically; do not handwrite your application. In order to ensure that the electronic forms work with all versions of the Adobe software, we strongly recommend that you first download and save the empty application form on your computer and then fill the form out and save it again.

Please use an Apple or Windows operating system to fill out the forms. The forms are not compatible with a Linux system.

Please use only the space provided in the existing fields on the application forms. The evaluators will not be able to read any text that extends beyond the existing limits of the fields.

Please do not change the formatting of the fields on the application forms.

Please send the application documents as separate attachments in your email. You do not need to merge the various documents into one PDF-file.

The application procedure and required application documents are indicated in detail here. Additional documents that are not listed on the website such as publication lists, literature lists, or CVs will not be sent to the evaluators.

If you do not yet know your exact expenses, enter your best estimate on the application form. Please be aware that if you receive the project grant, the amount awarded in the grant will be based on these expenses and the maximum amount for a project grant of 1,000 Euro.

It will not be possible to claim more than the amount you enter on the application form.

Project grant applications for data acquisition, data sets, project-related materials: Please submit proof of costs (e.g. offer, cost estimate of a provider) with the application form.

If you do not yet know the exact date of the external evaluator's visit, enter the anticipated date of his/her stay after having consulted the evaluator and indicate on the application form that there may be changes in the dates of the visit.

Due to budgetary rules, the approved travel and accommodation costs for the external evaluator must be paid by your institute (e.g. the institute of your supervisor).

If your grant is approved, the Graduate Academy will pay the grant directly to your institute and your institute will then be responsible for the administration of your external evaluator's travel expenses.

Please clarify in advance who is responsible for the organization and financial administration of travel expenses at your institute as the Graduate Academy will need to be in contact with this person in order to pay out the grant.

It is not possible to pay out the grant directly to the applicant because of the university budgetary rules.

"External funding" refers to funds that you have received from an external funding organization (e.g. Begabtenförderungswerke, other funding organizations) for your project. The fact that you have been awarded external funding can be of advantage to you in the evaluation process. For example, the receipt of an external grant or fellowship will be treated as a prize or distinction on your part.

The evaluation form for your application must be issued and submitted to the Graduate Academy by your doctoral supervisor. Please note that the evaluations are to be treated confidentially and must be sent by your supervisor directly to the Graduate Academy: ga-docs@uni-heidelberg.de.

Please be aware that the deadlines also pertain to the receipt of the evaluation form.

If it is not possible for your first supervisor to fill out the evaluation from for you (e.g. due to illness, parental leave etc.), you can ask another professor in your subject area who is familiar with your project to evaluate your application and complete the form for you.

a) Data acquisition, data sets, project-related materials

The Graduate Academy will pay the grant directly to the service provider based on the invoice that they provide as well as on the approved grant amount. For this reason, please submit the invoice(s) to the Graduate Academy as soon as possible after you receive them.

If your application is approved, you will receive detailed information on the financial processing of your publication grant with the written awards notification.

Important:

• Due to university budgetary rules, it is not possible to pay out the grant directly to the applicant.
• If the invoice amount exceeds the approved funding amount, a partial invoice in the amount of the approved funding amount must be submitted.

b) External Evaluation

If the grant is approved, the Graduate Academy will pay out the grant amount to the institute responsible for administering the travel expense of the external evaluator (see online registration form) so that the institute can then directly cover these expenses. The use of the grant funds (travel and accommodation cost) is governed by the rules of Heidelberg University and the guidelines of the heiDOCS funding program.

The institute must send the Graduate Academy a confirmation of the total expenses paid out by the institute (Verwendungsnachweis) no later than 2 months after the evaluation has been completed:

• If the actual expenses covered come to less than the grant payment, the institute must reimburse the difference to the Graduate Academy.
• If the actual expenses exceed the maximum grant amount indicated in the grant approval letter, the difference cannot be covered through the heiDOCS funding program.

For budgetary reasons, the approved funding amount cannot be paid directly to the grant recipient.

The grant is not transferable to another person or to a different project. Therefore, if you do not follow through with the project, you will automatically forfeit your award.

It is possible to postpone the evaluation; however, you must inform us as soon as possible if this situation arises. In order for you to retain your grant, neither the external evaluator nor the purpose of the visit may change.