Course ProWriting 2024: Effective Research Proposal Writing for National Public Funding

For details on course enrollment, please scroll down 9) Course enrollment!

If you have any questions, please write to: foerderberatung@tuwien.ac.at

1) Motivation

The creation of a research grant application is a challenging and time-consuming task. Due to limited funding budgets, the acceptance rates are often below 30% and the grant proposal typically competes with many other project submissions. Moreover, a vast number of funding programs differing in very specific criteria and rules do exist. Strategic goal of this course is to improve the capabilities and chances of (young) researchers to receive national competitive public funding.

2) Information Event (SLIDES, öffnet eine Datei in einem neuen Fenster)

January 30th, 2024 - 13:00-14:00, online (Zoom-Link, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster) 
Please register to receive the zoom link. If you missed the information event but would still like to know more about ProWriting 2024, please contact foerderberatung@tuwien.ac.at. 

3) Key Data

3 ECTS, English, more details are found at the TISS webpage (TBA)

The Vienna PhD school of Informatics, the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Faculty of Technical Chemistry and the Service Unit of Funding Support and Industry Relations, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster offer this course to promote skills complementary to the largely technical education within the area courses.
Please check with your faculty to see if this course is eligible as an area course within the PhD curriculum. 

4) Key Dates and Program:

  • Information event: January 30, 13:00-14:00 (SLIDES)
  • Deadline for submission of application March 1 (12:00 CET/noon)
  • Acceptance notification on March 3
  • Self Study (including exercises) preparing Presence Day 1: starts in a kick-off meeting on March 8
    Focus on project environment, national funding programmes, parts of proposal
  • Presence Days 1: March 21 +22
    Overview, idea generation, and parts of a proposal
  • Self Study (including exercises) preparing Presence Day 2, focus on developing and reviewing research project proposals
  • Deadline for submissions of proposal for reviewing is May 3
  • Deadline for reviews is May 17 
  • Presence Day 2: May 23
    Review Processes, Analysis and Discussion of Review Feedback
  • Self Study (including exercises) preparing Presence Day 3, focus on analyzing feedback and improving proposals, prepare presentation for Presence Day 3
  • Deadline for revised proposals is June 14
  • Presence Days 3: June 20+21
    Hearing/jury meeting with research proposal presentations and feedback

5) Teaching Staff

Funding Support and Industry Relations:

  • Elisabeth Schludermann, Funding Support and Industry Relations
  • Christian Maszl-Kantner, Funding Support and Industry Relations

Faculty of Informatics:

  • Stefan Biffl, CD-Laboratory Lead and Enabler, Research Unit of Information and Software Engineering
  • Andreas Steininger, Director PhD School of Informatics, Research Unit of Embedded Computing Systems
  • Agata Ciabattoni, Research Group Theory and Logics

Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering

  • Bernhard Pichler, ​​​​​Research Unit of Structural Analysis and Experimental Mechanics
  • Christian Schranz, Research Unit of Digital Building Process

Faculty of Technical Chemistry:

  • Hannes Mikula, Head of Research Group for Molecular Chemistry and Chemical Biology
  • Oliver Spadiut, Research Group for Integrated Bioprocess Development

Faculty of Mathematics and Geoinformation:

  • Sandra Müller, Research Unit of Set Theory
  • Michael Feischl, Head of Research Group for Computational PDEs

+ Reviewers/jury members from the research areas of the participating faculties, according to the topic areas of the course participants
+ External jury members with strong expertise in research proposal evaluation and mentoring

6) Target Group

PhD students with good knowledge on state of the art, junior post-docs, top senior master students from the Faculty of Informatics, the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. the Faculty of Technical Chemistry or the Faculty of Mathematics and Geoinformation. 6 to 12 participants per course semester.

7) Preconditions

Participants of this course are expected to have sufficient command of the state of the art to review and formulate novel research contributions to their field of research, such as PhD students at their proficiency exam (in the curriculum of Informatics).

8) Goals

The objective of this course is to impart to the participants foundational knowledge and capabilities for effectively translating their research ideas into strong research project proposals for attaining public funding. After completing this course the participants

  • can describe basic principles of research funding;
  • know an overview of major national public funding schemes;
  • understand the major parts of a research project proposal application; 
  • understand the reviewing process and the most common evaluation criteria;
  • can generate, visualize, and evaluate ideas for a research project proposal;
  • can express and focus their research ideas with an emphasis on novel aspects;
  • can write a good-quality research project proposal, either in basic or in applied research, depending on their research idea,
  • can analyze review and evaluation feedback by external jury members; and
  • can present their research project to a jury and analyze feedback from the hearing discussion.

These aspects of knowledge and capabilities ensure that participants are able to evaluate, develop, and present their future research project proposals.

9) Course enrollment
(details will be outlined at the information event on January 30)

Deadline for submission of application: March 1 (12:00 CET/noon)

1) Fill in the application questionnaire at https://www.umfrageonline.com/s/qmcgbkg, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster

A read-only version of the questions can be found here, öffnet eine Datei in einem neuen Fenster; we recommend walking through the read-only version and preparing answers already before opening the actual questionnaire (to avoid time-out).

2) Motivation letter: Describe on one page (pdf) with one paragraph each on

  • your funding need
  • your proposal idea
  • your knowledge of the state of the art in the relevant scientific area

3) Provide a support letter from your mentor in your faculty at TU Wien (pdf):

  • Your mentor should explain why s/he supports your taking part in the ProWriting 2024 course.
  • Your mentor should confirm that you have sufficient knowledge of the State of the Art in the scientific field of your proposal idea.

4) Make a submission in Easy Chair

The submission Web page for ProWriting2024 is  https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=prowriting2024, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster

  • Author 1 should be the course participant
  • Author 2 should be the mentor
  • Title: working title of your idea
  • Abstract: short description, according to questionnaire
  • Keywords: research area/topics

Append the support letter from your mentor to your motivation letter and upload the combined pdf file as your submission to EasyChair. This finalizes your submission.

Selection of the participants will be made according to the information requested in the questionnaire. There will be a waiting list of eligible candidates, who may take the seat of a participant who drops out in an early phase of the course.