To promote female early-career researchers and junior academics, the Executive Board has developed an “incentive scheme to increase the proportion of women in professorships” within the framework of its Equal Opportunities Concept.

Faculties that have appointed a female professor or junior professor externally are eligible to apply for the programme “Incentive scheme to increase the proportion of women in professorships”. The appointment must post-date the respective previous application period. For each female professor or junior professor successfully appointed, the faculty appointing them can apply to receive up to €30,000 in funding for equal opportunities measures. The total funds available in this programme allow for a total of five new appointments per year, with priority given to faculties in which female professors are currently most underrepresented.

Applications for this programme must be submitted in alignment with applications in the funding programmes “Provision of an academic staff position/staff appropriations pool for female graduates” and “Support for female junior professors and postdoc researchers through academic staff positions”. The faculties submit their proposals as a complete package to the Executive Board, which decides on the allocation of funding. Applications can be submitted to the Executive Board via the respective dean’s office by 15 October of each year. The faculty-specific submission deadlines for the internal pre-selection are announced by the dean´s office. The funding provided must generally be spent in the 12 months following the application deadline.

If there are several applications, the faculty must prioritise these and justify their choice. The shortlist (max. 3 proposals) for submission to the Executive Board should be developed by the faculty with the participation of the Equal Opportunities Officer.
Applications must be supplemented by a concept setting out the concrete measures for which the funding is requested, as well as a budget plan. Applications may be submitted for funding measures in accordance with the equal opportunities concept, in particular measures to promote female early-career researchers and junior academics. These should be new measures or measures to complement existing measures. In case of overlapping objectives with other programmes (e.g. the Committee for Research and Junior Academics’ research reserve), it should be clearly stated why funding is sought within the framework of equality.

The following documents must be enclosed with the application:

• Concept on the equality measures for which funding is sought
• Schedule
• Budget plan

The duration of the funding period is one year. Expenditure beyond this period must be justified.

At the end of the funding period, a status report on the funded measures must be submitted to the Executive Board.

Download Grant Line 3 as a PDF (currently only available in German).