Minerva Centers
Application
Minerva Centers are scientific pioneer institutions with a focus on innovative research topics in Israel and are funded by the Minerva Stiftung, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the particular host university where the Center is based. The research at the Centers is carried out in cooperation with German partners.
How to apply
About every two or three years, a Call for new Minerva Centers in a specific field of research is launched. This Call initiates a three-stage procedure and leads to the establishment of up to three new Minerva Centers.
The first stage of the application procedure intends to be a collection of promising ideas. Researchers are invited to submit pre-proposals of exciting and innovative topics that are suitable for being best elaborated by a new Minerva Center. The topics can be interdisciplinary in their approach.
Applications must contain the following documents:
- a signed pre-proposal, including a summary and an outline of the intended research (up to three pages);
- a short CV of the proposed Director(s), including their name(s) and contact details (up to one page for each Director);
- a list of not more than five important publications of each Director.
The pre-proposals should be fully comprehensible without reference to cited or enclosed literature. The Principal Investigators are free to inform their host university about their application and the university is allowed to comment on them before submission.
All required documents are to be sent to Minerva (details below). Applications can be submitted by a scientist, who either applies personally to lead a Minerva Center as a Director or proposes another scientist as a Director of a Minerva Center. The pre-selection of the applications is carried out by the Minerva Center Committee shortly after the deadline.
In the second stage, the selected Principal Investigators are invited to present a more elaborated and detailed proposal with a focus on the practicability of the intended Center and its budget plan. This full proposal must have the support of the host university in the form of a letter of commitment. The proposals will then be evaluated by at least three external reviewers each. Thereafter, the Minerva Center Committee will rank the elaborated proposals.
In the third stage, a number of Principal Investigators will be invited for a personal presentation and a discussion with the evaluation panel (the Center Committee and, if applicable, additional scientists). Afterwards, the Minerva Center Committee will rank the presentations and make its final decision.
Deadline and Schedule
Applications for the 1st stage must reach the Minerva office. Please submit them electronically and as one print copy to michael.nagel@gv.mpg.de
For the further schedule of the procedure, please mind the current Minerva Centers Call for Proposal.
