By establishing junior research groups, the university offers outstanding young scholars and researchers the opportunity to conduct independent research and build up their own working groups. In recent years, a number of funding institutions have established programs of this kind that include participation from academics and scientists at Freie Universität Berlin.
The Emmy Noether Programme supports researchers in achieving independence at an early stage of their scientific careers. Postdocs gain the qualifications required for a university teaching career during a DFG-funded period, usually lasting five years, in which they lead their own independent junior research group.
As a rule, researchers who have acquired between two and four years of postdoctoral research experience are eligible to apply. Applicants must have international research experience.
The Heisenberg Programme is directed primarily at those researchers who have qualified for professorship via the Emmy Noether Programme, DFG staff positions, private-sector research or non-faculty academic positions. The target group also includes junior professors who have received positive evaluations, those who have achieved their habilitation or equivalent, and German researchers returning from abroad, as well as appropriately qualified foreign researchers looking to pursue careers in Germany.
Heisenberg Fellows at Freie Universität Berlin:
A 'Freigeist' fellow: for the Volkswagen Foundation this means a young researcher with a strong personality, a creative mind, an ability to identify and use freedom, dedicated to overcoming resistance. If necessary, he or she will be a free spirit, enjoying the unexpected, even unexpected difficulties. A 'Freigeist' fellow opens up new horizons and combines critical analysis with imagination and innovative solutions. By thinking ahead the 'Freigeist' fellow will act as a catalyst in overcoming existing disciplinary, institutional and even national boundaries.
The Lichtenberg Professorships were conceived both as a means of attracting outstanding researchers as well as helping to establish innovative academic teaching and new lines of research at German universities. The funding initiative enables grantees to plan with greater certainty, thus creating the opportunity for independent work in their own new lines of research.