S. Carter Graduate Foundation Funding Programme

Annual budget: Approximately €10,000 is available each year. The call for applications and allocation of funds are handled by the Graduate School.

Grant per application: max. €500 (up to €700 may be awarded in exceptional cases where the circumstances are deemed particularly difficult)

Transparency: The list of grant recipients, indicating that they have received support from the Sonja Carter Foundation, is published once a year (without specifying the amounts awarded).

Eligible applicants are research staff members at HM who intend to pursue a doctorate, as well as doctoral candidates registered at an institution authorised to award doctorates who are supervised by a Supervisor at HM but are not employed by HM. Registration with a Doctoral Research Center or a university department is compulsory.

The application may be made both for future expenditure and for expenditure incurred no more than 12 months ago.

An application form is available for this purpose.

The selection criteria are (weighted in the following order):

• Functional relevance to the doctorate (i.e. what role does the requested funding play in the doctoral project?)
• Financial relevance to the doctorate programme (i.e. doctorates not linked to third-party-funded projects will be given priority for funding, including training posts. Furthermore, the funding should be sufficient to cover a substantial proportion of the costs associated with the requested requirements.)
• Reasonableness of costs (i.e. for software and travel, comparable services are taken into account in the assessment)
• Equity of distribution (i.e. whilst no fixed budgets are allocated to departments or doctoral centres, care is taken to ensure that there are no significant imbalances in distribution)
• Affiliation with HM (i.e. doctoral candidates from HM doctoral centres are given priority for funding)
• Academic achievements to date (taking into account the stage of their career)

A selection committee assesses the applications and decides on the allocation of funds.

The payment is made to the applicant in the form of a scholarship. The approved amount is transferred to the applicant by the Finance Department without going through HM.

Funding is provided exclusively for material costs. The following list is exhaustive:

• Consumables, equipment hire, subject remuneration, laboratory supplies and material samples
• Software licences, hardware, data procurement, cloud and storage charges
• Specialist literature, image rights
• Costs for conference travel by external doctoral candidates (not processed via BayRMS); in the case of travel abroad, it must be ruled out that a DAAD application is possible. Doctoral candidates who are employed externally may only receive funding if their external employment is not related, in terms of content or organisation, to their doctoral research, and if their external employer does not provide financial support for the internationalisation initiative. Nor is it possible for the employer to provide partial funding in addition to the internationalisation grant.
• Event entry fees for events

Staff costs (including Student Assistants), everyday equipment (laptops, mobile phones, etc.), and travel or conference expenses for HM staff are not eligible for funding.

If you have any questions, please contact gs@hm.edu