Female Early Career Researchers

Bavarian Program for Promotion of Equal Opportunities for Women in Research and Teaching

The Bavarian State Ministry of Science and Art) is financially supporting the "Program for Promotion of Equal Opportunities for Women in Research and Teaching".

The aim of this program is to support highly qualified women early career researchers in their goal to become professors by providing financial support for covering the researcher's living expenses. 

Eligible researchers can apply for the following scholarships which are subject to fund allocation by the ministry and to budgetary approval.

Application deadline: 1. May 2025

Earliest possible begin of the scholarship: 1. July 2025

      Application form 

• scholarships for beginning a doctorate
• scholarships for completing a doctorate
• postdoc scholarships
• Habilitation scholarships
• post-Habilitation scholarships

Call for Applications and Funding Guidelines

Contact in case of further questions: 

• Katja von Poschinger,
  Equal Opportunities Coordination Office
  chancengleichheit@ur.de | phone +49 941 943-3581
   
• or contact your respective faculty Representative for the Equality of Women in Academia and the Arts

Scholarships for Completing a Doctorate and Initial Funding for Doctoral Candidates or Postdocs in UR's Financial Incentive System Framework

In UR's financial incentive system framework to promote gender equality, the Faculty Representatives for the Equality of Women in Academia and the Arts have financial resources available which can also be used for scholarships or research assistant positions for the completion of a doctorate, or initial funding for doctoral candidates or postdocs.

As this is only one of many possible use criteria and since the funds are very limited, please visit the website of your Faculty Representative for the Equality of Women in Academia and the Arts to find out whether you are eligible for this scholarship.

Find the Faculty Representatives for the Equality of Women in Academia and the Arts and the links to their respective website here ...

More Search Options

• The ELFI research database offers information on more than 12,000 research funding programmes from around 5,200 national and international sponsors. Updated weekly, you can search this database for regions, research topics and available support. This database also contains scholarships for students.
• The University of Regensburg is a subscriber to this service, allowing all UR researchers free access within the university network: www.elfi.info

Small Research Grants For Women Early Career Scientists

In order to implement equal opportunities for women in research and teaching, the University of Regensburg (UR) provides additional funds for publication support, travel and research assistants for early career women scientists until 31.12.2027.

Target group | Female postdoctoral researchers, habilitation candidates, private lecturers at the UR with temporary employment contracts, W1 professors and advanced female doctoral candidates from faculties in which the average proportion of female doctorates over the past four years has been below 50 percent (for applications in 2025: Catholic Theology; Law; Business, Economics and  Management Information Systems; Philosophy, Art History, History, and Humanities; Mathematics; Physics; Chemistry and Pharmacy).

Benefits | Grants for material and travel expenses as well as allowances for research assistants that contribute to the profile of the academic career and for which no other funding is possible.

Applications can be submitted on an ongoing basis

Find the guidelines and more information here.

International Mobility Grants For Women Early Career Scientists

In order to provide support for early career women scientists, the University of Regensburg (UR) is offering grants until 31.12.2027 to finance research stays abroad and to promote international mobility.

The cross-faculty program serves to finance long term, in-depth research trips abroad and is intended to support highly qualified women academics in their careers by integrating them into the international academic network. The mobility grant is a university-wide program to promote equal opportunities for women in science.

Find the guidelines and more information here.

Application deadline: 1.5.2025

Contact:

Katja von Poschinger | Equal Opportunities Coordination Office 

0941 943-3581 | chancengleichheit@ur.de

The university's executive board annually provides financial resources to the University Representative for the Equality of Women in Academia and the Arts to enhance equal opportunities at the University of Regensburg.

This funding is to promote female early career researchers and to acknowledge the faculties' progress and success in achieving gender equality. These funds are distributed amongst the eleven faculties of the university. Funding allocation is done according to a specified distribution scale which considers the achievements of the faculty regarding the promotion of women in the previous calendar or academic year.

Thanks to this decentralised allocation of funds, the (subject-specific) needs of the individual faculties are taken into consideration more precisely. 

Funding opportunity examples:

• student or research assistant positions (SHK/WHK) for female early career researchers
• initial doctoral funding
• scholarships for doctoral completion, postdoc or Habilitation scholarships 
• funding for research trip travel expenses
• external study programme information events
• literature and software procurement
• printing subsidies
• support for female researcher guest lectures or cooperation partner invitations organized by UR female researchers
• further training
• faculty equality concept measures
• Publication translation costs

Contact: the respective Faculty Representative for the Equality of Women in Academia and the Arts

For more information, please access the german website.

For more information, please click here ...

For more information on Mentoring.UR, please click here ...

Mentoring.UR provides various training opportunities for female early career researchers. Even if you are not a mentee with Mentoring.UR, you can still participate in its training programmes. Find out about upcoming events here ...

If you would like to receive the current schedule, sign up for our newsletter "Chancengleichheit.UR" to receive regular e-mail updates: chancengleichheit@ur.de

To promote female early career researchers, from 2019 to 2024 the University of Regensburg is offering scholarships funding research stays abroad and promoting mobility and internationalization.

This cross-faculty programme finances longer research trips or stays abroad in order to assist candidates in obtaining further qualification while forming international networks. By integrating candidates into the international research network, this measure aims to support highly qualified female early career researchers in their path to becoming university lecturers. The mobility grant is a university-wide structural measure to promote equal opportunities for women in research within the framework of the Programme for Women Professors III of the Federal Government and the Länder.

For more information, refer to the guidelines for International Mobility Grants: https://go.ur.de/mobilitaetsstipendien.

Application deadlines:

• 01.05.2022 | 01.11.2022 | 01.05.2023 | 01.11.2023 | 01.05.2024
  for planned research stays in the subsequent semester.

If you have any questions, please contact: Equal Opportunities Coordination Office | Christina Decker | chancengleichheit@ur.de | phone +49 941 943-3581

The University of Regensburg's Academic Research Sabbatical Programme (ARSP) supports researchers' scholarly pursuits and qualifications in the postdoc stage to enhance their chances of appointment to professorships. This programme enables Akademische Rätinnen und Räte auf Zeit or employees who have obtained a doctorate and who hold an Akademische/r Rat/Rätin position to pause their teaching, organisation, and administration duties at their chair for one semester.

Applications must be submitted by May 1 for funding in the following winter or summer semester. A maximum of six grants are funded each year. 

Find more information here: https://go.ur.de/arsp ...

This programme was extended in May 2018 in keeping with the Equality Concept.

The University of Regensburg provides financial support to accommodate statutory maternity leave (MuSchG, UrlMV).

This university-wide structural measure, in place from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2022, promotes family life and academic career compatibility.

This financial support system serves

1. to compensate for statutory absence or limitation in teaching and research when a full substitution for the pregnant woman or new mother is not feasible
2. to finance personnel support in cases of individualised maternity leave or to cover experimental laboratory activities which can no longer be undertaken due to pregnancy
3. to provide financial security for women on scholarship if the scholarship donor does not finance maternity leave

Here you can access the guidelines and application information for maternity support  within the university network (pdf file, 42 KB).

If you have any questions, please contact: Equal Opportunities Coordination Office | chancengleichheit@ur.de | phone +49 941 943-3581