Ausschreibung im Bereich Informatik

19.05.2026

VW Stiftung: Pioneering Research – Exploring the Unknown Unknown

Deadline: 27th August 2026

With the programme "Pioneering Research – Exploring the Unknown Unknown", the Foundation supports groundbreaking and risky research ideas with high scientific relevance. We are looking for basic research projects that are not dedicated to the already 'known unknown', but that strive to explore the 'unknown unknown' thereby holding the potential for major scientific breakthroughs, but also for failure.

About the programme:

area of research: all disciplines
type of funding: visionary projects from the field of basic research
up to 1.3 million Euro
3 to 5 years
post-doctoral researchers and professors at German universities and research institutes; (intl.) collaborations are possible
highly competitive two-stage selection process including Distributed Peer Review

Q&A session: Thu, 11 Jun 2026, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Another Q&A session will take place on 16 July.

Deadline Short Proposals: 27th August 2026

Pioneering projects must fulfill the following criteria:

radically explorative basic research
new scientific ground
research off the beaten track
high scientific relevance
high knowledge potential with the expectation of achieving important scientific breakthroughs or even triggering a paradigm shift
if successful, providing impetus for the specialist community or even beyond
conceptually or methodologically risky

Projects with the following criteria are not eligible for funding:

incremental gain in knowledge or little progress in an existing field of research
continuation of own work or next logical step in own research
combination of established methods or development of methods without a scientific hypothesis
primarily application-oriented or aimed at translation
development of therapeutic approaches and diagnostic tools, as well as clinical trials
overlap with the Volkswagen Foundation's current thematic funding initiatives

Further information:
https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en/funding/funding-offer/pioneering-research-exploring-unknown-unknown

Zurück