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1. September 2025
Hector RCD Award – Apply Now Until October 30!

Support for Ambitious Young Researchers on the Path to a Professorship

The new appli­ca­tion phase for the Hector Research Career Devel­op­ment Award has begun. The award is aimed at W1 profes­sors (with or without tenure track) and junior research group leaders in the natural and engineer­ing sciences, medicine, or psychol­ogy who work at univer­si­ties or research insti­tu­tions in Germany and have already demon­strated promis­ing scien­tific achieve­ments. The appli­ca­tion deadline is October 30, 2025.

Winners of the Hector RCD Award receive a one-time research grant of €25,000 as well as funding for a doctoral position. In addition, they become members of the Hector Fellow Academy for five years, gaining access to a valuable research network.

Candi­dates with the follow­ing quali­fi­ca­tions can now apply for the Hector RCD Award:

  • W1 assis­tant profes­sors (with or without Tenure Track) or own junior research group leaders in natural or engineer­ing sciences, medicine or psychol­ogy (e.g. Emmy-Noether Programme (DFG) or similar)
  • Doctor­ate or PhD-equiv­a­lent less than seven years prior the appli­ca­tion with excep­tional results
  • Tempo­rary employ­ment at a German univer­sity, Fraun­hofer-Insti­tute, Helmholtz-Center, Leibniz-Insti­tute or Max Planck Institute
  • Formal or content-related right to super­vise a doctorate

For more infor­ma­tion on the award and all appli­ca­tion details, please click here.

With this award, the Hector Fellow Academy supports the acade­mic careers of outstand­ing researchers in the natural and engineer­ing sciences, medicine, and psychol­ogy. Estab­lished in 2020, the award has already recog­nized 17 excel­lent early-career researchers. Their fields of research range from biology, physics, chemistry, and engineer­ing to mathe­mat­ics, computer science, medicine, and psychol­ogy. Their projects stand out for fresh ideas and innov­a­tive research approaches.