We are happy to announce our next GAUSS Career Service online workshop “Third-party funding and proposal writing” by Dr. Sabine Müller.

This workshop is intended for Postdocs and late-stage PhDs planning to apply for a research grant in the near future and would like to inform themselves about different funding schemes and what is essential to write a competitive grant application.

• Date: Thursday, 9 July 2026, 9-17h
• Duration: 1 full day
• Location: online
• Trainer: Dr. Sabine Müller

Registration: Please register here (in case you are not registered yet) and send an email to career@gauss.uni-goettingen.de including a short statement on your motivation to attend the workshop.

Workshop description

First of all, the workshop provides the applicants with an overview of the most important (national and European) funding agencies and schemes in relation to the participants career stages. Participants will also have the chance to look into interesting funding schemes in more detail.

The participants are also taught the basics of application design by addressing the following questions, among others: Which parts does an application have? What belongs in any case? Who reads the proposal? How do I establish a connection to the funding program?
Furthermore, instruments for the time planning of the application and the elaboration of the research project are presented. The participants are supported in developing their current research projects, in delimiting them appropriately and formulating them in a way that is suitable for the application.

Common review procedures and evaluation criteria will be presented, and insights into formal and informal aspects of the review process will be provided. Success factors and strategies in the application process will be presented and the handling of rejected applications will be discussed.

• Overview on funding agencies and programs
• Choosing the “right” funding programme
• General criteria of the application design
• Parts of an application
• Plan the structure, scope and costs of the project applied for
• Time planning in the application process
• Current review procedures and review criteria
• Strategies and success factors in the acquisition of external funding
• Dealing with rejections

Testimonials by former participants:

• I suggest this workshop if you are late PhD students (as it was in my case) or early postdoc. It gives a very good introduction about the possible funding opportunities and its application process. It helps you to take initial steps towards the application of your own funds. You can also get more information through participants who might be actively applying for the funds. I would highly recommend the workshop.
• It is very informative and helpful if you are a young researcher and want to apply for a grant.
• I think it is a nice workshop for people that did not do prior research on the research institutions and funding programs by themselves yet, as one gets the feeling of the most common funding agencies and programs. In particular, for all DFG-related projects/grants, it is very informative. Some exercises are performed and allow one to interact with other researchers.
• The ideal workshop for early-career scientists who are planning to write their first proposal.”