The renowned Marietta Blau Scholarship offers excellent doctoral students at Austrian universities the possibility to complete a longer, targeted research period abroad within the framework of their dissertations. The submission round of 1 February 2024 saw a new record number of applications and fortunately also funding: 39 of 61 applications were successful. The successful applicants will start their research abroad during the second half of the year within the framework of their dissertations written in Austria.
The 39 successful candidates were able to assert themselves in the multi-stage selection process and were able to convince both the external reviewers in the written evaluation and the members of the selection committee in the personal selection interview. In the interview they were able to present complex issues in a simple and comprehensible way, making their research understandable to an interested lay audience.
The broad range of successful applications is particularly encouraging: scholarships have been awarded to doctoral students from twelve different universities. They will conduct their research in 21 different target countries, eight of which outside Europe – including Mexico, New Zealand and Australia. There were a particularly large number of applications from the field of medicine and related disciplines. However, with applications from the technical, agricultural and veterinary sciences, disciplines that are less frequently found in our scholarship programme were also represented.
By the closing date for applications 1 September 2024 42 new applications were received – we are looking forward to meeting the next generation of Marietta Blau scholarship holders soon!
