Funding opportunities

The Faculty of Engineering offers professional and career lectures by top-class female scientists. The aim is to present female role models and their research or career paths and thereby motivate female students and young female scientists to pursue a scientific career. In the course of the current target agreements, the Faculty of Engineering supports guest lectures by external female scientists through financial sponsorship.

• A maximum of €1,000 in funding is available for guest lectures by female researchers from research institutions outside of Europe.
• A maximum of €750 is available for guest lectures by female researchers from research institutes within Europe.
• The maximum funding available for women in research from within Germany is €500.

An informal application from the chair extending the invitation is all that is needed to apply for funding towards travel expenses for guest lectures at the Faculty of Engineering. Detailed information on how to apply can be found in the guideline for application.

Applications must be submitted at least 6 weeks before the guest lecture. Please sent your application in electronic form to Hanna Stöcker

The Faculty of Engineering offers visiting scholarships to encourage excellent young female researchers from  other research institutes to spend time researching at the Faculty. Women who are well on their way to achieving their doctoral degree, carrying out postdoctoral research, working on their habilitation or working as a junior professor are all eligible to apply for funding.

The maximum amount of funding available for each application is €2,000.

Detailed information on how to apply can be found in the guidelines for application.

Applications must be submitted at least 6 weeks before the arrival of the guest scientist. Please sent your application in electronic form to Hanna Stöcker.

The Faculty of Engineering would like to motivate female students and female scientists from the doctoral phase onwards to pursue a further scientific career or to encourage them to continue the same and to promote their scientific networking on an international level.

Funding is provided for active participation in a conference (lecture/poster or similar), participation in a summer school, a workshop, a science campus or a similar event.

Please note that there are also “black sheep” at conferences that are pseudo-scientific or pseudo-conferences and offer no or only very limited added value for scientific exchange. Funding cannot be granted in such cases.

Each applicant can apply for a maximum of four grants of up to €3,000 over the period of the current target agreements (2023-2027). In the sense of a “hardship case”, applications beyond this must provide detailed reasons why no other funds are available from the chair for further conference participation.

Further information can be found in the Guidelines for application.
The application form can be downloaded here. (Form as of June 26, 2025)

Research periods at foreign research locations are a central component of a career in research. The Faculty of Engineering offers outstanding young women researchers the possibility to apply for a scholarship as a guest researcher abroad (international visiting scholarship).

Support is provided for young female scientists (from qualification level advanced master’s degree (master’s thesis must be written at FAU), doctoral candidates, female postdocs, habilitation candidates and junior professors) of the faculty.

The funding offer is aimed exclusively at women who wish to pursue an academic career.

Further information can be found in the Guidelines for application.
The application form can be downloaded here. (Form as of June 26,2025)

The Faculty of Engineering can provide financial support for individual coaching.

A successful scientific career on the way to a professorship requires not only professional excellence but also the development of strategies and competencies. Young female academics find themselves in a wide variety of situations with regard to their career planning, and individual, tailored advice from a professional coach is often an important element in positioning themselves for their future careers.

A coaching session is a 1:1 consulting situation suitable to address specific, individual career development issues. The coach actively supports the coachee in her/his career development. The women’s representatives support individual coaching sessions if the coachee is pursuing an academic career. Included in this context are topics such as.

• Career and self-marketing
• Career and goal management
• Career planning
• Discovery of personal resources and their effective use
• Self-leadership
• Perception of one’s own competence to act
• Preparation for appointment negotiations

The coaching should also provide impulses for independent further work and development. We support you in finding a suitable coach. Coaching sessions are funded with a maximum of € 1,000 for up to 6 sessions.

For more information, please refer to the application guide.

The Faculty of Engineering is committed to advancing the careers of particularly talented women across all qualification levels. They run the ARIADNETechNat mentoring programme in cooperation with the Office of Equality and Diversity. By providing women individual support through a personal mentor, the programme aims to help women successfully complete their further qualifications, whilst also encouraging high-potential female students and young researchers to start a career in research. Experienced mentors are there to give advice and support as and when needed. Participation in the programme is free of charge.

ARIADNE offers individual advice and support through one-to-one mentoring by experienced FAU academics of a higher qualification level, an accompanying career seminar programme with professional coaches and organised networking events for the mentee group. If international mentees are participating, the events will be held in English.

The Faculty of Engineering recognises outstanding doctoral theses written by young female researchers at the Faculty with an annual endowed doctoral thesis award.

The decision is taken internally at the Faculty and suggestions are not accepted.

If you have any questions about the promotion price, please contact Astrid Nietzold.

We would like to encourage all female students and early career researchers to have a career discussion with their supervisors and professors.

Information for female students and early career researchers

The professors and supervisors at TechFak are open to discussions and will support you in your career planning. We would like to encourage you to initiate these discussions and take the opportunity to actively shape your career.

Why a career interview?

• You show initiative and the desire to actively plan your career
• You can discuss your individual prospects and specific objectives
• You set the course for your professional career

What can I ask?

• We have created a guide to help you prepare for the interview and give you ideas for possible questions. This guide will help you to structure the interview effectively and address topics that are relevant to you.

Career talk – Guideline for doctoral candidates / young researchers

Information for supervisors and professors

What is the aim of the career talk?

• To support doctoral candidates and young researchers in their career development
• Support in the development of perspectives
• Definition of options and goals

All newly appointed female professors receive start-up funding in addition to the standard financing. The aim of this measure is to encourage women to apply for professorships and to make the Faculty a more attractive employer for highly qualified women.

Expenditure/costs
• W1-professorship: €50,000*
• W2-professorship: €50,000*

The entire amount is allocated to the newly appointed professor.

* If a permanent professorship is awarded to an internal member of staff or a professorship is changed from temporary to permanent, the difference to the maximum amount is paid. In no instance will more than 100% of the stated maximum amount be paid.

Start-up funding is requested after the call is accepted by an informal letter from the Faculty Women’s Representative to the university administration.

Leaders can apply for an earmarked allowance within the context of the Emmy Noether Program (module: family allowance). These funds are intended to cover additional costs incurred for caring for children or relatives in need of care during conferences and research trips. The reimbursement of costs (module: family allowance) is only available to leaders of Emmy Noether research groups. Further information on applying and using the allowance: https://www.dfg.de/resource/blob/168194/356b71aeb3e013e896edfd5fbb87be67/52-17-en-data.pdf

Accounts are settled at FAU exclusively by following the standard procedure for booking costs and sending receipts to H4 – Accounting rather than claiming for travel expenses via P6.

Please also take the new rules on the Regulation on transaction reporting obligations (Mitteilungsverordnung) into account.
https://www.fau.eu/fau/legal-regulations/regulation-on-transaction-reporting-obligations-mitteilungsverordnung/
https://www.intern.fau.de/haushalt-und-finanzen/mitteilungsverordnung/

Participants based abroad require a German tax identification number: https://www.fau.eu/fau/legal-regulations/regulation-on-transaction-reporting-obligations-mitteilungsverordnung/#keine-Steuer-IdNr