From Application to Funding: Your Journey with the R&T House
Are you planning a research proposal and don’t yet know which funding programme is right for you? Do you need support in preparing general parts such as impact or in structuring the project? In this case, picking up the phone or going straight to the Research & Technology House can be a big help. Its employees are the first point of contact for anyone planning research projects and wishing to apply for funding. Researchers should make contact at an early stage; ideally as early as the project idea phase. They can work with you to check which national or European funding programmes are the most suitable and how the project can be strategically positioned.
Special services are available for the acquisition of highly endowed ERC grants. Anyone considering applying for one of these prestigious grants should first join the ERC Club.
For EU applications of all programme lines, the team at the Research & Technology House takes care of all administrative steps in the EU portal and knows all about the criteria for a good application. It organises proofreading by peers and detailed proposal checks with the FFG’s National Contact Point (NCP).
The Research & Technology House has experienced colleagues in its team for all funding institutions, including national ones such as the Austrian Science Fund, Austrian Research Promotion Agency, CD Society or the State of Styria. They offer the following services, among others:
- Funding advice: Selection of suitable programmes and funding instruments, advice on administrative requirements
- Application support: Structuring, feedback on the project description and formal review
- Financial planning: Advice on budgeting in accordance with the various cost guidelines. For larger projects, a budget item can also be planned for administrative project management. This means that the entire financial project management can be taken care of by experts from the Research & Technology House.
- Support with structuring: Projects are clearly visualised with the help of project management methods. With the clear definition of objectives, the structuring of work packages and the creation of work breakdown structures, the project becomes transparent and easy to organise.
- Impact expertise: Description of the social, economic and scientific benefits of your project. This includes, for example, exploitation strategies (including dealing with IPR), contributions to sustainability goals, plans for the dissemination and communication of results and the presentation of possible collaborations with industry and society.
In addition, the Research & Technology House provides financial support for applications, whether through the semi-annual initial funding programme (focus on young researchers) or the new Go4Coordination programme (focus on coordinators of EU applications). If you want to submit collaborative EU applications in a coordinated manner, enquire about individual support. We recommend, for example, moderated impact and/or project structure workshops with the project team. This helps to work out the common thread and focus the shared idea. High-quality proposal writing support is available depending on available resources and suitable topics.
The Research & Technology House sends out the newsletter ‘F&T News’ approximately every fortnight. With this service, all researchers are regularly informed about funding possibilities, scholarships, calls for applications as well as events and internal offers at TU Graz.
With its expertise, the Research & Technology House increases the chances of success of your funding application, takes some of the organisational burden off you and supports you in presenting the impact of your research visibly and convincingly.
Here is a list of all the contact persons.
This article focuses on the services offered by Research & Technology House at Graz University of Technology. In the TU Graz people cover story, you can read also the article ‘Believe in Your Ideas!’ and the article ‘ERC Grants: Welcome to the Champions League of Basic Research’.
You can find this article and other articles to browse through in TU Graz people #94, the magazine for TU Graz employees and interested parties.
