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Strategic Research Fund

The goals of the HHU University Development Plan in the area of research include supporting the process of developing a research profile, increasing the number of collaborative research projects, strengthening outstanding individual research and promoting researchers in an early career phase. In addition, inter- and transdisciplinary discourse with its special challenges is to be actively promoted.

The Strategic Research Fund (SFF) supports these goals through suitable programmes and contributes to successful third-party funding applications by the University’s researchers at regional, national and international level.

You can currently submit applications in the following programme lines:

  • Collaborative proposals
  • Project proposals in an early career phase
  • Interdisciplinary projects with an exploratory character
  • Third-party funding bonus for early career researchers

Application deadlines: 15 April and 15 October (midnight) of each year (unless otherwise specified for the individual programme lines).

We look forward to receiving your application!

Members who are eligible to vote

Prof. Dr. Dr. Andrea Icks MBA Chair
Vice President for Research and Transfer
Prof. Dr. Stefan Marschall Vice President for International Relations and Science Communication
Prof. Dr. Martin Heil Dean Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Prof. Dr. Ulli Seegers Dean Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Prof. Dr. Stefan Süß Dean Faculty of Business Administration and Economics
Prof. Dr. Katharina Lugani Dean Faculty of Law
Prof. Dr. Laura Kallmeyer Department of Computational Linguistics
Prof. Dr. Christine R. Rose Institute of Neurobiology
Prof. Dr. Björn Usadel Institute of  Bioinformatics (FZJ)
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Lichter DICE

Advisory members

Prof. Dr. Guido Reifenberger Vice Dean for Research and Young Scientists (Medicine)

HHU has changed its system for the electronic submission of applications for the Strategic Research Fund (SFF), meaning that application submission will be form-based from 2023 onwards.

Only electronic applications completed in full will be considered. All required application documents must be merged into a single PDF document (no larger than 5 MB).

Please note that you must have all the required information already available when you start the electronic application submission process, as it is completed in a single step. First of all, you should enter the data in the application form and then upload and submit the application document (PDF).  Subsequent editing is no longer possible.

List of the information to be entered in the form-based template:

The following applies for every principal/further applicant:

  • Affiliation (Faculty and Institute)
  • Form of address and title
  • First and last name
  • Date of birth
  • University tel. extension
  • University e-mail address
    • Only addresses ending in @hhu.de, @uni-duesseldorf.de or – from the 2nd further applicant – @med.uni-duesseldorf.de
  • Date of doctorate (only for the future group/junior group programme lines or project proposals in an early career phase)

Please note: Individuals who gained their doctorate more than eight years ago are not eligible for funding under the “project proposals in an early career phase” programme lines.  The period of eight years may be extended by two years per child pursuant to Art. 2 (1) of the act on fixed-term contracts for scientists (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz – WissZeitVG).

The following information is required for the SFF application:

  • Title of the proposal
  • Project term (start and end date)
  • Total budget
    • Personnel
    • Resources
    • Travel expenses
    • Publication expenses

Division 4 processes the personal data it receives in electronic and non-electronic form in the course of administrative processes for the Strategic Research Fund (SFF). The scope of the personal data processed is concentrated on master data (incl. name, title, organisational affiliation), curriculum vitae and research activities (incl. third-party funded projects, publications) stated in the application procedure. The processing occurs pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. e General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in order to perform tasks in the public interest, in conjunction with Art. 3 (1) (tasks of the university), Art. 5 (2) (financing and financial management) and Art. 70 (tasks and coordination of research, publication) of the Higher Education Act of North Rhine-Westphalia (Hochschulgesetz NRW).

In the course of the application and assessment process, we rely on the support of the company Axonic Informationssysteme GmbH for the provision/performance of the processing.

Contact for the processing:
Dr Dorothea Uhle
E-mail: 
Tel.: +49 211 81-13203 (secretarial office)

Contact details of the Data Protection Officer:
E-mail: 
Tel.: +49 211 81-13060

You can find detailed information on the processing of personal data within the framework of administrative processes for the Strategic Research Fund (SFF) in this document.

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