Financial support for doctoral/PhD students currently enrolled at an Austrian accredited university who want to spend 6 to 12 months abroad with the intent to optimise their thesis. Applicants must pursue their PhD studies in Austria. This grant does not support applicants enrolled in programmes which are pursued mostly or completely from abroad at the time of application.
Objectives:
- To optimise the doctoral thesis by way of a continuous and specific long-term visit abroad.
- To support young Austrian academics in the early years of their scientific career and their internationalisation respectively.
- Strengthening Austria’s status in science and research.
The scholarship serves to support young academics; therefore, the professional or academic career aspired with the support of the doctorate should be plausible. The grants explicitly does not focus on lifelong learning (no mid-career projects!).
Target group:
Highly qualified doctoral/PhD students currently enrolled at an Austrian accredited university who do not exceed their 6th semester of their PhD-studies. The study progress must be efficient and uninterrupted; Exemptions for delays are childcare, home care for relatives, military or civil service or the academic employment at a university or research institution, applicants must provide relevant proof.
Target institutions:
Accredited higher education institutions, non-university research institutes, industrial research laboratories or field research; as well as archives, libraries, museums or research institutions whose stocks, research results and infrastructure are necessary for realising the project. The target institution must be abroad.
Further information:
- It is possible to split the grant duration into shorter periods, the total has to be six to twelve months. However, periods of less than 3 months are not permissible. Grants for shorter research visits may be provided by the home university.
- The grant has to be consumed within 18 months of its starting date .
- It is possible to apply for research visits to multiple countries (outside of Austria); however, all visits have to be combined in one application.
- The grant’s objective is to help optimise the recipient’s doctoral thesis; therefore, the grant must be consumed before the thesis is handed in. Stays which last longer than the estimated end of the PhD-studies cannot be granted.
- Persons who have already received a Marietta Blau-Grant are excluded from a repeated application.
- All applicants may name a maximum of three potential reviewers who are believed to have possible biases and who should be excluded from the review process.
- Marietta Blau-Grant recipients must be present at the target institution/in the target country (according to the application) without any interruption and conduct their studies and research abroad. Interruptions of the stay abroad have to be reported immediately to the OeAD.
- It is not allowed to apply for a project that has already started abroad at the time of the application. An extension of an already longer stay abroad is not eligible.
Closing dates for application:
1 February (selection/interviews in June/July, starting date between August and January)
1 September (selection/interviews in December/January, starting date
between February and July)
Please submit your application at the deadline corresponding to the selection schedule. Due to organisational and budgetary reasons, it is not possible to start a grant project earlier or later.
Information about the funding:
- The Marietta Blau-Grant serves to cover the additional costs arising as a result of and during a stay abroad. Therefore the grant is exempt from taxation in Austria according to §3 Abs .1 Z. 3 lit. d of the Income Tax Act. If grant recipients receive any other governmental funds (from the federal government, provincial government, local government, EU) for the same period of time in addition to the Marietta Blau-Grant, they have to specify this. In this case, it is required to show the necessity of additional funds for the same period of time and the same project in a detailed finance plan. Such cases will be examined individually.
- Receiving an ERASMUS grant for the same period of time is not permitted.
- The tax and revenue office at the grant recipient’s place of residence is responsible for judging whether or not taxes will have to be paid for funds received in addition to the Marietta Blau-Grant – especially for funds used to finance running costs in Austria. The grant recipient is responsible for filing tax returns and for paying any taxes that may be charged. The OeAD will report the disbursement of the Marietta Blau-Grant to the Transparency Database.
- Grant recipients are not permitted to pursue gainful non-academic employment while they receive the grant. Academic employment is only allowed with an income up to the Austrian minor employment rate. Such employment has to be stated in the financial plan and will be examined individually.
Application documents:
1. Fully completed online application form in German. Incomplete forms will not be considered. Applicants whose native language is not German may also complete the form in English.
2. Current proof of admission to a doctoral programme.
3. Confirmation of periods of study.
4. Written official confirmation stating the dissertation supervisor and the topic as well as a confirmation of the Austrian home university that the dissertation topic has been submitted and approved (e.g., dissertation agreement).
5. Letter of recommendation issued by the dissertation supervisor (dated and including a stamp of the institution and signature of the person recommending the applicant). The letter must not be older than six months at the time of application.
6. Exposé or proposal (justifying the necessity of the stay abroad, defining the problem, aims, methodology, and schedule and including a selective literature list) – 5 pages in German or English.
7. A first outline of the dissertation or an abstract (approx. 1 page, in German or English).
8. If applicable, an official confirmation that the applicant may utilize the facilities and resources at the guest institute (stamp plus signature).
9. If applicable, current letter of confirmation or invitation letter issued by the supervisor at the applicant’s hosting institution/s (can be handed in later in exceptional cases).
10. All clearances necessary for the research project need to be submitted with the application (e.g., declaration that there is no objection of the ethics commission or the animal testing commission).
11. If applicable, documents to prove circumstances that have caused delay in the applicant’s study progress, such as childcare, home care for relatives, military or civil service, employment at a university.
General information:
- The grant is competitive and will only be awarded to the most qualified applicants. No applicant is legally entitled to the grant. The number of awarded grants depends on the budget as well as on allocated quotas.
- Once an application has been rejected, it will not be considered any further within that call. However, it is possible to re-apply for this grant with a revised application in the future.
- Persons entitled to Austrian federal student aid (“Studienbeihilfe”) may additionally apply for a raise of their aid amount to support their studies abroad (https://www.stipendium.at/english).
Data protection:
Applicants note that the personal data provided within their application will be processed diligently on the legal basis of General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Austrian Data Protection regulations, in particular § 2g Research Organisation Act (Forschungsorganisationsgesetz – FOG), Federal Law Gazette No. 341/1981, and OeAD Act (OeAD-Gesetz), Federal Law Gazette I No. 99/2008, all in their current versions, for the purpose of handling their application and compiling statistics. The OeAD is responsible for processing the applicant’s data. More information is available at
https://oead.at/en/privacy-policy/ .