Formal requirements
Formal requirements vary. With some funding agencies, an application is only accepted with the approval of the relevant department and the rectorate of the university. This applies especially to
- coordinated programmes, such as collaborative research centers or research training groups;
- postdoctoral researchers who apply for a temporary position as principal investigator with the DFG;
- reseachers who are applying for an ERC grant;
- any programme in which the university as an institution is the formal applicant, not the individual researcher, that is all calls for applications by the federal government;
- and programmes in which the university has to pre-select potential applicants, such as the "Eliteprogramm" for postdoctoral researchers advertised by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Stiftung.
If you wish to apply to these programmes, please contact us as early as possible. We will discuss the application process with you and collect any documents or signatures that you may need.
If you need formal collaboration agreements or research contracts with partners, please contact our contract team.
Letters and signatures
If you need any accompanying letters or signatures by the rectorate, please contact us at least two weeks before the deadline. Ideally, you will have already talked to all relevant people (in your department and the rectorate) by then.
Checking formal aspects of your proposal
Every grant agency will make a formal check of your application before it is passed on to reviewers. It is hence vital to make sure that you follow the agency's guidelines. We will be happy to check your proposal before you submit it.
"Drittmittelverfahren" (authorisation of external funding)
After the submission of your proposal, please fill in the form "Drittmittelformblatt" (external funding form), attach a copy of your proposal and send it via your department to the university's "Forschungsverwaltung" (research funding administration).
By signing this form, the department officially approves your proposal, and the university accepts the proposal as a project of the University of Konstanz.
In addition, this procedure serves to notify the Forschungsverwaltung of your proposal. This assures that the Forschungsverwaltung team already knows all key data when you receive the funding decision, so that they can immediately create a “Kostenstelle” (university billing account) for the new project, and the project can start without delay.