by Annika Backe
July 21, 2016 – When looking for ways to fund one’s own work, it is very easy for a post-doctoral researcher to lose track of all the grants and fellowships currently on offer. Scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities can now resort to a database. This device is also available for those postdocs in foreign countries that want to come to France.
fund:it is the title of the project that is supported by French scientific and government institutions. Accessible on the internet, the database lists all funding opportunities currently open, offered by the most diverse institutions – including universities, ministries and museums. A great number of the listed international programs are not only open to French scholars but also to members of other nationalities, too. At present, the database contains more than 360 funding opportunities of more than 920 institutions worldwide, among them 75 located in France. The available funding currently amounts to more than 362 million euros.
The website makes the search quite easy: Firstly, you decide if you want to come to France or (as a French scholar) want to go abroad. When choosing the latter, you then have to make up your mind if you want a funding opportunity in Europe or rather if you would like to ‘Go international’. After ticking an area you are interested in – voilà – you see all the results with the details necessary to apply. You can bookmark projects and save the search to stay informed about matching calls without any further effort on your part.
As praised by the project coordinators, this database might well turn out to be a ‘gold mine of valuable information’ for interested postdocs. And, when searching for funding programs, who wouldn’t want to save precious time – it is so much better invested in research.
Please find the fund:it website here, both in French and in English.
Interviews, reports and much more can be read in the fund:it blog.
Funding opportunities in Germany are listed in the Förderdatenbank des Bundes.
And you might also want to check the website of the Stifterverband für die deutsche Wissenschaft.