Momentum – Funding for Recently Tenured Professors
Momentum – Funding for Recently Tenured Professors supports academics in Germany with flexible measures to develop their research and research-based teaching, strengthening creativity and research diversity.
Browse similar grants
Funder: Volkswagen Foundation
Due Dates: April 14, 2026 (Short proposals) | October 27, 2026 (Invited full proposals) | April 6, 2027 (Deadline) | April 4, 2028 (Deadline)
Funding Amounts: Up to €850,000 over four years, then up to €200,000 over two years, plus 10% overheads
Summary: Flexible support for recently tenured professors in Germany to strategically develop their professorship’s research and research-based teaching.
Key Information: Applicants generally must be three to five years into their first tenured full professorship; conventional research projects are excluded.
Description
Momentum is the Volkswagen Foundation’s individual funding initiative for academics at an early stage after taking up their first tenured full professorship. Open to all disciplines, it creates space to rethink the content and strategic direction of a professorship beyond routine university work. Its goals are to strengthen research diversity, researchers’ creativity, and the strategic development of their organizational units in Germany.
The program supports tailored combinations of measures rather than conventional research projects. A concept may broaden an existing research portfolio, shift its emphasis, or establish a second research pillar. It need not abandon an established scientific orientation or represent an entirely new scientific approach, and previous work in the proposed new field is not required. Research-based teaching can form part of the development concept.
