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 for four years, then up to €200,000 for two years, plus 10% overheads
Summary: Supports recently tenured professors in Germany in strategically developing their professorship’s research and research-based teaching.
Key Information: Applicants must generally be three to five years into their first tenured full professorship; conventional research projects are not funded.
Description
Momentum is the Volkswagen Foundation’s individual funding initiative for professors at an early stage after taking up their first tenured full professorship in Germany. Open to all disciplines, it creates space to rethink a professorship’s content and strategic direction beyond routine university work. Its goals are to strengthen research diversity, researchers’ creativity, and the development of their organizational units.
The initiative supports flexible concepts for broadening a research portfolio, shifting direction, or establishing a second pillar of research, potentially alongside new research-based teaching approaches. It does not require a complete departure from an existing scientific orientation or previous work in the new field. Rather than financing conventional research projects, Momentum funds measures tailored to the discipline, institution, and intended strategic development.
