EU Funding Schemes for Early Career Postdocs
This post is based on a MEOW (30 Minute Explanation On Whiteboard) talk I gave while at Chalmers University of Technology. During my postdoc years, I found many early career researchers (PhD students and early postdocs) who did not always know what funding schemes were available to fund their research throughout the EU. In part, I think this is because astronomers tend to rely quite a bit on the job register of the American Astronomical Society: this is an excellent resource for finding advertised postdoctoral positions at specific institutes. However, national or international funding bodies typically do not advertise there (I think the main exceptions being the NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship program and ESA/ESO fellowships). Below, I’ve compiled some advice (worth however much one may ascribe to it! ) and different funding schemes that can be applied for. I focus primarily on the EU, since in the US for astronomy there are many institutional postdoctoral fellowships and the national bodies are primarily NASA and the NSF. The list below is meant to be living - I will try to add to it over time!
📡 General Advice
When looking at descriptions for proposal calls, there are a number of different descriptors for the current career track. You’ll see timelines such as R1, R2, R3, R4 or First-stage, recognized, established, leading. These can be broken down, roughly, into PhD/first-year postdoc, first postdoc, postdoc fellow/second postdoc/lecturer, group leader/professor.
When preparing these proposals, a first instinct may be to try to start with the funding amount and time and write the proposal around that. While it may seem obvious, it is worth stating it: the very first step before even writing any of these independent research proposals is to come up with a research program that excites you. If you are not excited about this project, it will come out in the writing and the review panels will see that. A first instinct for your first postdoc may be to continue what you were doing with your PhD. This is completely fine! But, make sure this is what you actually want to do, and what you’re really excited about, rather than what is comfortable. These years are when you can start to truly define yourself as a researcher! It’s exciting, but also can be quite daunting!
You will likely apply to many postdocs, fellowships, and for many grants. Many of these may return as rejections. It is worth saying again (and again and again and again) that this is not a statement of your worth as a researcher or your work. Getting consistently similar comments from referees may indicate something you need to adapt in your proposals. However, there are many reasons why the result may be a rejection - do not take it personally, and use it to help you grow.
I list out below a number of different funding programs at different early career stages.
🇪🇺 European Union
There are two major European Research Council (ERC) programs for funding
Marie Curie Fellowship (URL). These are highly competitive two year fellowships (for the European fellowship) that can be taken anywhere in the EU. There is a global fellowship option which is 2-3 years and covers time in a third-party country with a requirement of a 1 year return. Calls typically open around April.
ERC Starting Grant (StG). These are very sought after grants for early career researchers. Obtaining one of these greatly increases the options for finding professorships in Europe, which can be difficult. These grants cover 5 years for the proposer to start their own small research group. The grant can fund 1.5M Euro over those 5 years. It is worth noting that if the PI needs to fund their own position, this eats a large amount. Further, how big of a group will depend on what country you take it to: countries that pay their PhD students and postdocs more will lead to smaller groups. These are typically due in fall. Advice: if you plan to apply, start planning in Spring! It takes time to find a host, and write a compelling proposal for 5 years of cutting-edge research for a group.
There are also fellowships both from ESA and ESO with yearly calls. These can be found in the AAS job register.
🇸🇪 Sweden
As the most recent country I’ve lived in and worked in, I'll start with Sweden! The main funding body is the Swedish Research Council, Vetenskapsrådet (or VR). There are two main grants here:
VR individual grants. These are very difficult to get, in part just because the large number of proposals across the fields. These can be used to apply for your own time and (maybe) a bit of travel expenses.
VR starting grant. These are 4 year grants for researchers between 2-7 years after PhD to fund yourself and other researchers. It comes with a total grant of 1.1M Euro/year (about 100k Euro/yr). In general these are best for researchers whose positions are already funded differently.
There are also proposal calls for grants (mostly for faculty PIs) from the Swedish space agency (Rymdstyrelsen) and private foundations such as the Wilhem and Martina Lundgrens Foundation.
🇩🇪 Germany
Germany has a number of different options for funding your own research. The main governmental funding body is the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), or German Research Foundation. There are, again, two main important funding programs from the DFG, with rolling deadlines:
Walter Benjamin fellowships. These are two year funded fellowships at a German institutes (the abroad option allows for 1 and 1, international and German).
Emmy Noether Junior Groups. The EN is a 5 year grant to fund a small research group. They are one of the main typical paths that can help you find a professorship in Germany, in part because they provide stability and experience. While there is no hard limit on funding, the general advice I got was to plan for 1.5M Euro. However, while for the ERC this includes overhead, for the EN it doesn’t. This amount, at maximal, would fund 3 PhD students, a postdoc and your own funding, with travel and publication money. These proposals take significant time, and you can only apply up to 4 years after your PhD.
While not any of the above, the DFG funds large research collaborations called Collaborative Research Centers (CRC), or Sonderforschungsbereiche (SFB). These are large collaborations between multiple institutions for up to 12 years, in groups of 4 years. If there is a CRC in your field in Germany, it is worth keeping an eye out since they will likely have hiring blitzes every 4 years.
Germany has a number of other good funding bodies for postdocs.
Humboldt Foundation (Humbold fellowships). These are two year postdoc fellowships that can be taken to almost any research institution (such as University or Max Planck institute). These can be quite good as they are not as heavily over-subscribed as the others.
Helmholtz Association - Helmholtz Investigator Groups. These can be applied for to take to a Helmholtz-funded center for 5 years up to 1.75M Euro. The proposal system for this is a bit more complicated with internal proposals first, etc.
Max Planck institutes. These institutes often have a lot of independent fellowships and researchers they hire. In astronomy, they post a lot of their jobs on the AAS job register.
🇦🇹 Austria
Austria has two main funding bodies. The ÖaW (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the FWF (Austrian Science Fund). The FWF has three important programs:
PI Programs - two years of funding. No explicit maximum, but what is needed for the project.
ESPIRIT - three years funding as a senior postdoc, with flat costs extra of 45k Euro.
ASTRA - 5 years of funding from 500k to 1M Euro. This is meant to help establish you as a professor somewhere in Austria. It is currently not active, but worth keeping an eye on it.
🇳🇱 Netherlands
The main program I have experience with in the Netherlands is the Veni/Vidi/Vici program (NWO Talent program). The Veni is meant for those who have recently achieved their PhD, Vidi is for after a few postdoc years, and Vici is for senior researchers. The Veni proposal is quite interesting. When I applied through this, it was one of the first that required a narrative CV rather than a typical CV. Further, these narrative CVs could not mention citation count, H-index, etc, and required the applications to describe the impact of their research outputs. It also gave an opportunity for the applicant to respond to the referee reports - something I wish more proposals enabled!
🇫🇮 Finland
Finland’s main body for this is the Research Council of Finland (RCF). For both of the proposals below, 70% of the funding is covered by RCF and 30% is by your host. So, you won’t be able to blindly apply for this, but have to work with your prospective host.
Academy Research Fellowship. 4 year fellowship which can cover your salary and one other researcher.
Academy Professorship. These cover funding to establish yourself as a professor, with calls every 3 years.
