Ideas and Venture Fund for early career stages
The goal of the Ideas and Venture Fund is to provide quick, unbureaucratic funding for research projects that will form the basis for individual grant applications for third-party-funded projects. Funding is available for preliminary studies, preparatory workshops, and networking activities, among other things.
Early career researchers who have a doctorate and whose employment at the University of Hamburg is secure for the planned duration of both the project and the subsequent grant application period are eligible. Funding requests can be submitted for projects in the University’s emerging fields and profile initiatives. The funding amounts to €50,000 per project.
To allow for a more customized funding, we will issue 2 calls for applications per year.
Information about the next call for applications
Who can apply?
Researchers who have completed their doctorate no later than 5 years ago and whose employment at the University of Hamburg is secure for the planned duration of both the Ideas and Venture Fund project and the subsequent grant application period are eligible. Parental and other leave periods will be considered.
Application documents must be submitted in English.
Status of the funding measure
Applications for funding starting in mid-April 2025 could be submitted until 1 December 2024.
How often is funding offered?
Twice annually
More links
- Merkblatt Ideen- und Risikofonds (DOCX) (updated on 13 November 2024)
- Application form (DOCX)
- Finanzplan (XLS) (updated on 13 November 2024)
Contact
News about the Excellence Strategy
Photo: MPSD
17 November 2025|Excellence StrategyThe German Physical Society Honors University of Hamburg Physicist
The German Physical Society has awarded Prof. Dr. Andrea Cavalleri the Stern-Gerlach Medal for outstanding work in experimental physics. Cavalleri is the leading researcher in the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Images of Matter at the University of Hamburg.
Photo: Rafa Neddermeyer/Cop30
10 November 2025|Excellence Strategy“Belém is a signal.”
In the Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS), Brazilian-born sociology professor Eduardo Gonçalves Gresse is researching how international climate conferences work. He is taking part as an observer in this year’s UN Climate Change Conference in his native country, and says he is cautiously...
Photo: Private
6 November 2025|Excellence StrategyUltrafast meets ultrashort: CUI team receives prestigious ERC Synergy Grant
A research team in the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter at the University of Hamburg and DESY has been awarded the prestigious Synergy Grant from the European Research Council. It will receive €14 million to combine atomic-scale imaging with attosecond science, the most advanced approach to ultrafast...
Photo: ESO/B. Tafreshi
21 October 2025|Excellence StrategyThe Sky in All Its Colors
A few days ago, the European Southern Observatory launched operation of a new type of instrument, the 4-meter Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST), which will carry out unique sky surveys over the next five years. The University of Hamburg is involved in this milestone of the international 4MOST consortium with its...
Photo: Charles Steitler
7 October 2025|Excellence StrategyX-Ray Insight into Ancient Letters
The cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia are considered the world’s oldest written artifacts. Many of them are hidden in clay envelopes, their contents still a mystery. The world’s first mobile CT scanner for cultural goods is now enabling the Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts (UWA) to read the texts for the...
Photo: UHH/Kornowski
2 October 2025|Excellence StrategyThoughts on the “Marvelous Magnifying Glass”
With its 5 electron microscopes, the University of Hamburg is a major location for these large pieces of equipment. The chemist Dr. Charlotte Ruhmlieb explains how to make them as useful to as many researchers as possible and why research today is inconceivable without these microscopes.
