Call opens: 9 January 2025

Online info session: 20 January 2025 (info and registration here)

Submission of applications by 16 February 2025

Results of applications will be available in March 2025.

Implementation period for Berlin-based projects: 1 April 2025 – 15 November 2025

Implementation period for Oxford-based projects: 1 April 2025 – 31 March 2026

The Oxford Berlin Research Partnership aims to further mobility and scientific connection between Oxford and Berlin. The partnership and BR50 institutes will make available funds to promote the initiation for new or continuation of existing collaborations and research projects between researchers based in Oxford and Berlin.

The funds are primarily intended to cover costs for travel, accommodation, the organisation of workshops, smaller-scale commissioned work (such as translation work) and comparable activities between Oxford and Berlin. Depending on where the applicant is based, the funds are awarded via the individual BUA partners, the University of Oxford, or the BR50 institutes.

Application

You will find the links to the online application forms and the budget sheet for download at the bottom of this page.

Please briefly address the following questions and aspects in your application:

What specific measures and projects will be carried out? Why are they important? What is the aim of the activities (e.g. acquisition of third-party funding, joint publications or field research, supervision of students, etc.)?

What specific benefits or added value do you expect from the activity for your own research and for academic cooperation between Berlin and Oxford?

Please note that there are different forms, depending on whether the applicant is based at a BUA institution, the University of Oxford, or BR50.

Please find the forms at the bottom of this page.

Available funding

BUA applicants: The maximum funding amount is EUR 3500 per application or you can apply for up to EUR 5000 if your project involves at least two BUA institutions. Travel and accommodation costs are calculated on the basis of the German Federal Travel Expenses Act. The approved funds are budgetary funds. They are earmarked and are to be used exclusively for material costs (i.e. not staffing costs) in accordance with the budget plan and the submitted application. The funds will be managed by your home institution.

If you are based at HU or FU, you must have an existing cost centre that you can use to manage the funds or be in a position to create one for the purpose of managing these funds. Please make sure you check this with your finance department before applying.

If you are based at Charité or TU, the funds will be administered centrally. You will receive a cost centre against which to make claims, book trips etc.

You will receive more detailed information on the management of the funds after approval with the funding notice.

BR 50 applicants: Researchers from non-university research institutes of the BR50 can apply without affiliation to BUA. The maximum funding is EUR 3500. The funds will be provided by and administered at your institution and therefore the application needs the approval from the head of your institute (cf. BR50 application form for details). In case your institute cannot provide the funding, please get in touch with Anja Sommerfeld (sommerfeld@fv-berlin.de) before applying (until 3 February 2025).

Oxford applicants: The maximum funding is 3500 GBP per application. Travel and accommodation costs are calculated on the basis of The University’s Departmental Expenses Guide, available for consultation here: Expenses | Finance Division.

If you are based at the University of Oxford, the funds will be transferred to your faculty or department from the central University and administered there. Before you submit your application, please make sure that you have raised this with your faculty/ department and obtained their agreement to administer this.

 

Who is eligible to apply?

Professors, post-docs and doctoral candidates of the Berlin University Alliance, the University of Oxford, and the BR50 institutes. We particularly encourage applications from Early/Mid- Career researchers.

Thematic focus

Depending on your research discipline, there might be a thematic focus for researchers based at the institutions of the Berlin University Alliance or the University of Oxford.

Interdisciplinary applications or applications in the humanities can be in any research area.

Areas where applications in the social sciences are particularly welcome include democratic resilience and colonial legacy.

Applications in the field of medical sciences dedicated to the following research topics are particularly welcome.

• Circadian Medicine
• Computational Pathology
• Neurodegeneration
• Mitochondria and Metabolism
• Healthy ageing
• Disease prediction and prevention
• Global Health

In STEM, a preference is given to applicationsfrom researchers based at any of the four institutions part of the Berlin University Alliance or the University of Oxford in the following research areas:

• Energy (in particular batteries/energy storage systems, photovoltaics, energy distribution, flexible use of energy, bioenergy, energy transformation, energy systems design)
• Process automation (in particular self-driving laboratories, process control, robotics, digitalisation laboratories and (bio)process industries, FAIR data systems)
• Bio- and chemical catalysis of complex systems (in particular hydrogenase, cell engineering and difficult to express proteins, evolutionary processes)

Cross-divisional collaboration in interdisciplinary projects is encouraged.

 Applications from the BR50 institutes don’t have thematic restrictions.

 

Procedure

Please submit the application forms online and the corresponding budget sheet to the appropriate e-mail address below by 16 February 2025. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us under the following addresses:

BUA applicants: please contact oxber@berlin-university-alliance.de.

Oxford applicants: please contact Dr Aoife Ni Chroidheain Lau aoife.nichroidheain@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk.

BR50 applicants: please contact Anja Sommerfeld sommerfeld@fv-berlin.de.

You will receive the results of your application in March 2025.

After your application has been reviewed, you will receive feedback from us by e-mail.

A short report must be submitted after the cooperation activities. We will send you an online form for this purpose a few months after the end of the project implementation period.

Applicants are asked to note that the Research Partnership’s Annual Symposium will take place on 30 September 2025 in Oxford. The topic will be innovation. Successful applications are encouraged to attend this Symposium and where possible, to organise workshops, meetings and discussions funded by their award around this date in order to maximise the networking possibilities that the Partnership could offer.

 

What criteria are evaluated?

Applications will be evaluated by the selection committee according to the following criteria:

1. clear description of the joint project/research question

2. added value of the collaboration between Berlin and Oxford

3. potential for further collaboration and acquisition of third-party funding

4. experience and composition of the PIs/teams

5. diversity of the teams and topics