Basic Research
Basic research has been at the heart of our mission since the Volkswagen Foundation was established in 1962: the researchers we support initiate curiosity-driven, visionary projects, undertake experiments with uncertain outcomes and challenge existing hypotheses in order to arrive at fundamentally new insights.
Basic research is changing our world, but it requires patience – from researchers and funders alike. As the largest private foundation supporting science, we provide reliable funding that goes beyond purely applied considerations: for example, through various funding initiatives within the ‘Exploration’ profile area, which are dedicated not only to the ‘unknown unknown’ but also focus on the creative process at the very beginning of a new research idea. The ideas and concepts that emerge in this way feed into the pipeline of ideas from which – sometimes decades later – solutions develop for problems that were not even suspected at the time of their exploration.
Our thematic focus on basic research shows you just how diverse and surprising basic research can be.
Basic Research is Part of the DNA of Our Funding Activities.
Funding Offers #Basic Research
-
Pioneering Research – Exploring the Unknown Unknown
Learn moreThe funding offer addresses outstanding post-doctoral researchers and professors universities and research institutes in Germany, international cooperation partners are possible.
-
area of research: all disciplines
-
type of funding: visionary projects from the field of basic research
-
-
Night Science – Space for the Creative Mind
Learn moreThe funding programme is aimed at interdisciplinary tandems of two scientists who are open to unconventional approaches and have the desire to develop and implement innovative ideas for their research.
-
area of research: Natural, Life and Engineering Sciences (excluding medical sciences)
-
type of funding: Promotion of scientists’ creativity in tandems + obligatory support programme with three workshops
-
-
NEXT – 'Dual Use' of Ideas and Concepts from the Humanities and Social Sciences
Learn moreWhen academic ideas are taken out of their original context, they can have unexpected effects. This funding offer is aimed at project teams from the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences who are investigating how this transfer of ideas from academia into political and ideological contexts takes place.
-
area of research: humanities and cultural studies, social sciences, science studies
-
type of funding: cooperation projects; funding of a teaching substitute / own positions for postdoctoral researchers
-
