University of Vienna Uni:docs Fellowship Programme for Doctoral Candidates

The uni:docs fellowship programme is an individual scholarship which aims at financing excellent doctoral candidates for a period of three years. The scholarship will provide outstanding early stage researchers with conditions that allow them to focus exclusively on their research and thus make substantial contributions to science.

The fellowship programme will be offered once a year. It will be awarded on the basis of a multilevel review process. Currently, three calls for applications are planned.

Target group: Highly qualified (prospective) doctoral candidates at the University of Vienna.

All applications have to be submitted online through the funding portal of the Service Unit Research Services and Career Development.

Requirements

The fellowship programme is open to doctoral candidates of all disciplines.
Applicants need not necessarily already be enrolled as PhD candidates at the time of application.
Already enrolled applicants:
If the applicant is already enrolled as a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna, the admission has to have occurred no earlier than the summer semester 2014.
Not yet enrolled applicants:
If the applicant is not yet enrolled as a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna, the admission needs to take place before October 2016. All information about requirements and the admission process can be found here.
If funding of a duration of at least 2 years has been granted from elsewhere (e.g. ÖAW-DOC scholarship, or an employment at the university), then it is not possible to apply for the uni:docs scholarship.
The funding of part-time dissertations is not possible. Additional employment which is not clearly related to research is also not possible.
Applicants need a supervisor at the University of Vienna who is working in the field of the planned thesis. At the time of their application, applicants already have to be accepted by this supervisor as PhD candidate. The supervisor needs to fill out an online form (see application documents) to complete the application process.

Duration

Start of the fellowship: 1 October 2016
Generally, the scholarship is granted for three years.
An evaluation will take place in the first year (in the 10th funding month). A positive evaluation requires a successful public presentation, a first annual progress report, and a positive statement of the supervisor. At first, the PhD candidates are employed for one year and only after a positive evaluation the employment will be extended for another two years.
The maximum funding duration of the uni:docs programme is three years. An extension of the funding duration is not possible. However, an interruption for research reasons, such as for a funded research stay abroad, is possible. The salary is suspended for the duration of this interruption. In this case the programme will be prolonged for the duration of the interruption. The supervisor and the rectorate need to approve the interruption.

Funding level

Uni:docs fellows will be employed at the University of Vienna for 30h/week according to the current collective agreement.
Uni:docs fellows are members of the scientific staff who enjoy all rights and duties involved in such a position.

Application deadline and submission

Application deadline:

11 January 2016, 14:00 CET.

Submission

Submission is possible online only through the Funding Portal of the Service Unit Reserach Services and Career Development.
All documents need to be uploaded in time.
Language: Documents need to be submitted in the prevailing scientific language of the specific research field. However, in the Life- and Natural Sciences the application must be in English. The application language is not necessarily the language in which the dissertation will be authored.
Please note: The language of the application must allow for both the internal as well as the international review of the applications. If the language of the application constrains either one of the selection steps, your application may be rejected.
The application form and the abstract are to be filled in online. If the application is in German, the abstract has to be written in German as well. If the application is in a language other than German, the abstract must be written in English.
All further documents must be uploaded as pdf. documents. These documents include:
1. CV (in the language of the application),
2. Narrative CV (in German or English, max. 3 pages),
3. Research proposal (max. 10 pages including reference list).
In order to complete the application, also the supervisor has to fill out an online form. With the submission of the application, the supervisor is automatically asked via the online system to submit this statement. The statement has to be submitted by the supervisor online before 18 January 2016, 14:00 CET
All documents are to be composed with font size 11 and 1.5 spacing.

Please note: It is strongly recommended not to wait until the last minute to submit the application. Re-submission and corrections are not possible. It is also strongly recommended to inform the supervisor about the application and her/his duties and responsibilities related to this.

Application documents

A complete application includes the following parts:

From the applicant

The online application form including the abstract (max. 2000 characters incl. spaces). The abstract of German applications must be written in German. If the application is in a language other than German, the abstract must be written in English.
Upload: A CV (in the language of the application, max 3 pages). This CV should not contain any information that allows inferences on the gender of the applicant (no picture, no first name, no e-mail address with first names etc)!
Upload: A narrative CV (in German or English, max. 3 pages)
Upload: A research proposal of the dissertation project (max. 15 pages including reference list). The proposal must include information on the state of the art as well as information on methods, a time plan and information on relevant literature on the topic. The research proposal should not contain any information that allows inferences on the gender of the applicant (no picture, no first name, no e-mail address with first names etc)! Further information about the research proposal can be found here.

Please note: The total size of the documents is limited to 10MB

From the supervisor

Statement from the supervisor.
With the submission of the application, the supervisor is automatically asked via the online system to submit a statement. This statement should include an evaluation of both, the candidate and the reserach proposal. The statement has to be submitted online before 16 January 2015, 14:00 CET. Applications without the online statement of the supervisor will not be considered. Information regarding the supervisor statement can be found here.

University of Vienna Fellowship Programme for Doctoral Candidates, Austria

Deadline:

January 11, 2016

Disciplines:

Any, Science