Room for development: 'Momentum' funding for first-time professors

Since its launch in 2017, the 'Momentum - funding for recently tenured professors' initiative has been in high demand. Funding is provided to university professors three to five years after taking up their first tenured full professorship. The call for applications is open to all subject areas.

The program is aimed at a relatively small and comparatively privileged target group: professors. Don't they have a lot of freedom when it comes to the direction of their research anyway? How does 'Momentum' meet their needs?

Selahattin Danisman: The number of applications shows that the concept is still relevant: we get around 100 applications every year. Discussions with experts also confirm that the community needs a program like Momentum. Professors' room for creativity is limited where strategic considerations of universities - for example within the framework of the Excellence Initiative - collide with their own ideas. But also because funders typically prefer to grant money to projects in which professors have spent years building up expertise. We do not believe that this favors substantial further development of the professorship in terms of methods or research content. In 'Momentum', we want to create space for this. 

'Substantial further development' means that this is not simply about project funding?

That's right. This is not about funding another research project, but about opening up an entire field of research projects. This requires not just the usual funding instruments, but a format such as 'Momentum', where you can flexibly consider the needs of the group and reflect on them: What do I need so that I can answer different questions in the future than I have so far? 

'Momentum' is open to all disciplines. But what is the distribution between the disciplines?

Roughly speaking, two thirds of applications are granted in the natural and life sciences, one third for the humanities and social sciences. 

You talk about flexibility, but personnel funding for doctorates is excluded?

As Momentum does not fund individual research projects, we have excluded funding for doctoral students. This is because PhD students need well-defined research projects so that they can complete them in the time they are given. Also, the strategic development of a professorship involves a certain amount of risk. It can go wrong. And while a professor - as you said: a privileged target group - can tolerate a certain amount of risk, the possible consequences of a failed approach for doctoral students would be more serious. 

Applicants are required to submit a personnel concept. Why is this important?

We now require personnel concepts in all funding initiatives where you can apply for personnel funding. In Momentum, this is not required in the proposal phase, but later in the main application. This stems from the study 'Scientific Cultures' that we commissioned in 2023, which amongst other topics critically scrutinizes the employment of scientific staff in academia. The fact that 50 per cent positions are applied for in projects but it is expected that the people involved work 75 per cent or even 100 per cent is by no means a new discovery. The Foundation has concluded that when applying for personnel, you have to explain very clearly what these people will be employed for and to what extent their scientific work or career will benefit from their involvement.

But that's not the only change in 'Momentum'?

We have made a number of minor changes, which do not change the nature of the funding. Perhaps the most important is that the selection process no longer has three stages, but two. The first stage requires a 90-second video pre-proposal, a CV and summaries of the project. Those who are successful at this stage will be invited to submit a full application and present it to an interdisciplinary panel of experts. A written pre-evaluation of the full proposals - previously the second selection stage - will no longer take place.

Why this decision? 

As a funder, we are aware that the funding process means a lot of work on all sides: on the part of the applicants, the reviewers and on ours. A multi-stage selection process distributes the workload somewhat more fairly: those who have a greater chance of receiving funding also have to put in more work in such a process, while the initial workload in the pre-proposals is lower. Here we streamline the process to a certain extent, but without any loss of quality. And a small positive side effect: the work on the full applications no longer takes place in the summer, which will benefit applicants with school-age children.