Endowed Professorships (Raiffeisen Foundation)

The Raiffeisen Foundation supports the nationwide establishment of junior professorships and W2/W3 endowed professorships at universities of applied sciences and universities with an explicit focus on cooperative science. Aiming to sustainably strengthen research and teaching in rural cooperative studies, the foundation funds researchers who either hold an outstanding doctoral degree and are no older than 35 at the time of application or have already demonstrated exceptional achievements in teaching and research through habilitation or a positively evaluated junior professorship. Funding is provided as a grant through a two-stage process: initially, a project outline of up to 10 pages is submitted; upon successful review, the full application follows, including scientific objectives, task description, financial plan, and approval from the university administration.

Applications can be submitted at any time via the leadership of the university or scientific institutes in cooperation with the university of applied sciences or university. Funding prerequisites include the cooperative scientific relevance of the project, proof of scientific qualifications, and a clear alignment with sustainability goals in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals. The completeness of the documents and the added value for the cooperative sector are also evaluated. Additionally, information on other funders in the case of partial financing as well as references to concurrently submitted funding applications are required. After a positive preliminary review by the board, the full application is presented to the advisory board and evaluated by two expert reviewers before final approval is granted. Interested research institutions and university administrations can find detailed application instructions in the official documents of the Raiffeisen Foundation.