Submission deadline: Monday, December 02, 2024 (11:59 pm)

The Idea & Innovation Management at Freie Universität Berlin is guided by the objectives of our climate emergency declaration from 2019 and our sustainability mission statement, adopted in 2016. It invests in new solutions and approaches to promote socio-ecological change that have a positive impact on teaching, research, administration, or on campus of our university. For the fourth time, we are inviting all university members to submit their ideas to us by December 02, 2024.

Goal of the Call for Proposal

Under the banner of “FUturist,” we want to promote and fund ideas that have a positive impact on shaping socio-ecological developments at Freie Universität Berlin in various areas. An important role is played by the strengthening of engagement, visibility, collaboration, and knowledge transfer for sustainability within Freie Universität Berlin.

Your ideas can involve solutions for resource efficiency, mobility or health, to name but a few examples. Your suggestions can explore an issue related to climate or biodiversity protection, or show how students or employees can feel better supported to address sustainability issues.

It is important that the ideas are problem-based, solution-oriented, novel and have a positive impact on shaping sustainable developments (see goals of the FU Climate Emergency Declaration or the FU Sustainability Mission Statement) at our university.

Target Groups, Funding Criteria, and Required Document

This call for applications is open to all students and employees of Freie Universität Berlin. Funding can be allocated to individual applicants as well as teams, whereby one person serves as the primary applicant and point of contact for the project. Only one idea can be submitted per person. The project ideas can be carried out in collaboration with other departments, divisions, and institutions - this has proved to be helpful so far.

Only ideas that have not yet been initiated in another project will be allowed to receive funding within the scope of the competition. You are, however, permitted to submit ideas that build on the results of ongoing activities.

In total, five ideas can be funded with up to 25.000€. Fundings for each project are endowed with up to 5000€. The funding is solely designated for the specific purposes of the project.

Applications and all supporting documents must be submitted electronically via email as a single PDF file by the end of the day on December 02, 2024 (11:59 pm). Please use this template.

Please provide the following details on the application (max. 6 pages including budget):

1)    General information on all members of a project, including proof of FU membership

2)    Brief description of the idea/project and its intended effect

3)    Approach/method

4)    General project schedule

5)    General budget with a short description of the budgetary items

6)    Risk assessment

In addition:

7)    Informal declaration of consent to the publishing of the results

8)    Declaration that the rights of third parties have not been infringed

Please note: Only full applications will be considered in the selection process.

The applicants will be notified on February 1, 2025.

An interdisciplinary jury will be appointed to select the winning ideas.

The assessment criteria will be primarily oriented toward the relevance and feasibility of the project, the quality of the submissions and the strengthening of engagement, visibility, collaboration, and knowledge transfer for sustainability within Freie Universität Berlin. Applicants will not be entitled to take legal action to contest the decisions of the jury.

All ideas that receive funding, the project participants, and the results will be made open to the public and presented on our website. For the further development and to share know-how with the FU public, the ideas and the current state of progress will be presented at the FUturist-Midterm event in summer 2025

The funding period runs from February 1, 2025 to the ending of December, 2025.

Contact and Further Information

For further details, please refer to the FAQ with the most important explanations for this call.

For questions, please contact Sabine Heckmann, Project Coordination Ideas & Innovation Management at the Sustainability & Energy Office.

Schwendenerstraße 17, 14195 Berlin | Tel: 030 838 – 70984 | Email: sabine.heckmann@fu-berlin.de

We are very much looking forward to hearing your suggestions for how to improve sustainability developments at Freie Universität Berlin – good luck!