Prof. Dr. Ursula Gather
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Faculty of Statistics
Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Industrial Applications
Tel.: +49 (0)231 / 755 – 3110
The representative of DFG is the local contact for applicants. Furthermore she gives advice about DFG support for the application, especially for new applicants.
Collaborative Research Centers (SFB) are long-term research facilities of the universities in which scientists work together within the scope of an interdisciplinary research program. The collaborative research centers are funded by the German Research Association (DFG). DFG is the central self-management institution of science, with the aim to support research at universities and publicly financed research institutions in Germany. Technische Universität Dortmund is participating in two SFBs and speaker university of three of them.
Transregios (SFB/TR) are collaborative research centers located at different sites. The contributions of the cooperation partners have to be essential, complementary and synergetic for the common research goal. Structural goal is the trans-regional cross-linking of all interdisciplinary research interests and material resources. Technische Universität Dortmund is speaker university for one Transregio and participating in three.
A researcher group is a close work alliance of several outstanding scientists who work together on a research task. Here the research scheme exceeds the support within the scope of individual support of regular or focal procedures with regard to topic, time and finance. The support of researcher groups is supposed to help to provide the necessary personnel and material environment for a medium-term – generally six years – close cooperation. Researcher groups often add to the establishment of a new directions of work.
A particular feature of the Priority Programme is the nationwide cooperation between its participating researchers. The DFG Senate may establish Priority Programmes when the coordinated support given to the area in question promises to produce particular scientific gain. As a rule, Priority Programmes receive funding for a period of six years. Once the Senate has established the programme, the DFG announces a call for proposals.
The contract research for the industry is another important pillar of third-party funding of Technische Universität Dortmund. Each year about 4 million Euros are flowing into the faculties’ budgets. Front runner with regard to third-party funding is the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology closely followed by Mechanical Engineering, Architecture & Civil Engineering and Biochemical & Chemical Engineering.
The European Union (EU) has set itself the ambitious target to be the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world in 2010. And it has realized that this target can only be reached when the EU invests more money into research and development. European research funding aims at a surplus value for the competitiveness of the EU.
The public sector – ministries, scientific and non-scientific institutions – are an important source for financing research projects. More than 200 single projects, from scholarship-programs to the research into quantum effects in microelectronic elements, are funded with federal money in the amount of about two million Euros at present. And there are 80 more projects which are funded by other institutions of the public sector, and more than 100 which are funded by private and public foundations.