A major aim of the Europe and Global Challenges call, a joint funding initiative of the Volkswagen Foundation, Wellcome Trust (United Kingdom), and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden), is to stimulate collaboration between researchers based in Europe and researchers from other parts of the world on an important global issue. Successful groups will receive between € 500,000 – 800,000 in total (gross amount) for up to three years of research. The application deadline is Friday 30 January 2015.
Each research group – ideally involving not more than 4 different institutions – must include researchers from different geographical regions (e.g. Europe and Africa or Latin America). The majority of the project participants should be working outside European countries. The foundations recommend participation of at least one principal investigator from Germany, Sweden, or the UK.
Preference will be given to proposals with a strong inter-regional collaboration, which include contributions from various disciplines and which are innovative and cover new ground. It is up to the applicants to show why and how their proposals are feasible and why this particular research formation is appropriate for the research questions at hand.
Depending on the goals and scope of the projects, successful groups will receive between 500.000 – 800,000 Euros in total (gross amount) for up to three years of research. Funds can be provided both for non-personnel expenditure (including travel costs) as well as staff costs. The foundations envisage between 6-8 projects to be funded.
The call targets mainly scholars in the humanities and the social sciences, but by no means excludes the possible involvement of other disciplines.
