Exchange of Upper Franconian research funding

On March 19, 2024, the heads of research funding at the four Upper Franconian universities (Bamberg, Bayreuth, Coburg and Hof) met for the second time, this time at the invitation of the Research Funding Service Center at the University of Bayreuth.

The first round of exchanges in fall 2022 at the University of Bamberg had already shown how similar some of the challenges of research funding at universities and universities of applied sciences (HAWs) are, even if there are still considerable differences.

The range of topics was again wide this time, and there was a lively discussion for half a day, with plans for closer cooperation being drawn up. In addition to interesting updates from the four locations, this time the topics included the situation of third-party funding in general and experiences with the important regional and supra-regional funding bodies, and in the latter case in particular new funding opportunities open to the HAWs (e.g. DFG Research Training Group program) and how synergies can be generated here with the universities in the TAO network.

Other topics included internal university funding programs, quality assurance in research, the implementation of third-party funding guidelines and increased cooperation in the area of further training: events that have so far taken place at the individual locations (e.g. workshops on new funding programs or postdoc options) should in future always be available to the entire Upper Franconian research community. Suitable events will be announced to the others by the respective organizing university.