Marietta Blau-Grant

The Marietta Blau-Grant program funds research visits abroad (6-12 months) for doctoral/PhD students currently enrolled at an Austrian university. The applicants’ citizenship is not relevant; however, applicants need to be based in Austria (students from Austrian universities who pursue their PhD from abroad are not eligible).

Candidates may apply for a stay at a university abroad or a number of other institutions – for details, please consult our call. It is possible to apply for research visits to multiple countries (outside of Austria); however, all visits have to be combined in one application as it is not possible to receive the Marietta Blau-Grant more than once.

It is not allowed to apply for a project that has already started abroad at the time of the application. An extension of an already longer stay abroad is not eligible.

The Marietta Blau-Grant program is targeted at young academics and early-stage researchers from Austria and funds highly qualified doctoral/PhD students to optimise their dissertation. Several regulations result from these objectives:

• The grant must be consumed before the thesis is handed in to ensure that the findings from the research stay can be incorporated into the dissertation. Stays which last longer than the estimated end of the PhD-studies cannot be granted.
• Within their application, applicants must argue why the research stay abroad is relevant to their dissertation
• The study progress must be efficient and uninterrupted, applicants must not exceed their 6th semester of their PhD-studies (for exemptions, consult our call).
• The scholarship serves to support young academics; therefore, the professional or academic career aspired with the support of the doctorate should be plausible. The grant explicitly does not focus on lifelong learning (no mid-career projects!).

… some parts might seem like irrelevant fine print at first glance. Depending on your individual situation, different paragraphs can be particularly relevant for your application. So, we emphatically recommend reading the call step by step to make sure that you and your application comply with all regulations. The OeAD does not offer individual information that is published in the call anyway.

Please pay attention to the wording within the call and the online application form and get in touch when in doubt about its meaning.

Please carefully mind what we ask for in the online application form and the call, and make sure to offer the required information and documents. All applications will solely be evaluated as submitted. Once a deadline has passed, we will not be able to accept any documents or clarifying information. The application must leave no doubt on eligibility. If you are unsure on criteria or your eligibility, feel free to get in touch with us beforehand.

In our call, under item 4 in the section “Application documents”, we request a “Written official confirmation stating the dissertation supervisor and the topic as well as a confirmation of the Austrian home university that the dissertation topic has been submitted and approved (e.g., dissertation agreement).”

It is crucial, that the required aspects are confirmed (the title of the documents is irrelevant):

• Topic and supervision of the dissertation must be stated
• The university’s approval of the dissertation topic – that is, by a central facility of the university – must be evident

We request the confirmation of specific aspects rather than a specific document since the process of approving can be quite different depending on the university. The confirmation must be issued by the university, that is, a central facility like the dean’s office or the doctoral office. We are not able to accept a confirmation from the dissertation supervisor. The approval must be evident for outsiders who are not familiar with the university’s processes. So please make sure that the document you provide does not only comply with your university’s internal guidelines but -is also unambiguous for outsiders.

A document entitled "dissertation agreement” will not be accepted if it does not confirm the requested aspects.

Some universities do not issue such a document automatically. In this case, please get in touch with the centre responsible for doctoral studies at your university and ask them to issue a document specifically for your application. In our experience, this is possible when given appropriate lead time.

In our call, you will find the information on closing dates and the link to the online application form. Usually, the online application form will be published a few months before the relevant deadline. Please take your time to complete the application and contact us via Marietta-blau@oead.at in due time if you have any questions. We might not be able to answer near-term questions in time.

Applications can only be submitted online and are possible until 23:59 CET on the two submission dates per year. Do not wait until the last moment. The system will check your details again for completeness when you submit your application, which may result in delays and error messages. Please bear in mind that technical support is not online outside office hours and at weekends and therefore no support is available for open questions.

Submission after the specified deadline is not possible as the online portal closes automatically. Subsequent submissions by e-mail cannot be accepted either.

In the application form, we require information about your academic and non-academic career, your personal details, your dissertation and your proposed project.

While the synopsis is aimed at a specialist audience, the application form requires information about your project that is also understandable for an interested lay audience.

The Marietta Blau Grant not only supports a research stay, but also sees itself as an investment in the future careers of young researchers. We therefore require personal details in order to gain as complete a picture of you as possible.

According to the call, there are four review steps, each of which is carried out by different groups of people and which build on each other. The OeAD is responsible for the formal and plausibility checks, while the evaluation of the application is carried out by external experts. In the final step, the applicants are interviewed by the BMBWF selection committee.

Please make sure that your application addresses all these groups of people. We recommend that you read through the application from the perspective of the different reviewers (details of the review steps can be found below).

We will check whether your application complies with the guidelines set out in the call for proposals. We go through the call criteria step by step and check the information in your application form, as well as the form and content of the required documents.

We can only accept official documents - such as documents with an official signature or confirmations with letterhead, date and signature and ideally a stamp. It must be clearly recognisable to us that the documents are official and authentic.

In addition to the correct form of the documents, we naturally also check the content (see information on wording in the invitation to call).

After checking the formal criteria, all formally valid applications are analysed for plausibility. We primarily check whether the applications meet the programme objectives.

For example, we look at whether applicants correspond to the group of young academics and whether the professional or academic career aspired with the support of the doctorate is plausible. It is therefore important to provide complete information in the application form; you can explain any gaps in your CV in the ‘Additional information’ field. Only fully completed applications can be forwarded to the peer review.

Applications that are formally valid and plausible are assessed by external experts. There is no fixed pool of reviewers; experts from the respective subject area are recruited individually for the applications to be reviewed. The exposé and information on the dissertation and academic career are particularly important for them.

All applicants may name a maximum of three potential reviewers who are believed to have possible biases and who should be excluded from the review process. This must be briefly justified. You will receive corresponding information and an enquiry from us if your application has been classified as formally valid and plausible. On this occasion, we can usually also inform you of the planned interview dates.

The invitation to the personal interviews in Vienna is based on the results of the expert evaluation; unfortunately, virtual participation is not possible and travel expenses cannot be reimbursed. As soon as the peer review has been completed, we will inform you of a possible invitation - for organisational reasons, this is usually only possible at short notice (however, you will be informed of the dates of the selection interviews before the expert evaluation).

We do not expect a presentation; instead, you will be interviewed by the BMBWF commission members about your project, based on your application and the expert evaluations. The aim here is to explain your project clearly to interested outsiders who have nothing to do with your subject area (keyword: ‘public science’) and to respond to queries. In preparation, we recommend talking to as many people as possible about your research and your international project.

Please plan your stay in such a way that you meet the time requirements of the programme and have sufficient time for any preparations.

There are two submission deadlines per year with corresponding start dates (start date of the stay abroad) according to the call for applications. Applications outside these time slots are not possible. The selection process is extensive and time-consuming, which is why the final selection - including the selection interviews in Vienna - usually takes place relatively shortly before the earliest possible start date. Therefore, please choose your start date so that you can still make the necessary preparations (visa, accommodation, etc.) after you have been accepted. We may also require documents from you, such as a letter of invitation or proof of leave of absence, before we can issue you with the official award documents.

You can interrupt the scholarship, but you must complete it within 18 months of starting the scholarship for the first time. You must also spend at least three months at a time researching abroad (even if you can conduct research at several locations abroad during this time). We cannot fund stages of less than three months; grants for shorter research visits may be provided by the home university.

Once you have submitted your dissertation, your entitlement to the Marietta Blau Grant automatically expires.

We will keep you regularly informed about the status of your application:

Once the formal and plausibility checks have been completed, you will be informed of the status of your application. If your application is formally valid and plausible, you will also be informed of the expected interview days. Please keep these days free.

After the expert evaluation, you will be informed whether you will be invited to the interview in Vienna or not. Unfortunately, the expert evaluation are usually only available in full very shortly before the interview dates, so please expect to be informed at short notice.

After the selection interviews, it usually takes two to three weeks until the final selection result is available. We will then inform you immediately of the outcome.

The Marietta Blau-Grant serves to cover the additional costs arising as a result of and during a stay abroad. Therefore, the grant is exempt from taxation in Austria according to §3 Abs .1 Z. 3 lit. d of the Income Tax Act. If grant recipients receive any other governmental funds (from the federal government, provincial government, local government, EU) for the same period of time in addition to the Marietta Blau-Grant, they have to specify this. It is required to show the necessity of additional funds for the same period of time and the same project in a detailed finance plan; such cases will be examined individually. Simultaneous receipt of an Erasmus-Grant and non-academic employment are generally not permitted.

The scholarship is paid monthly in advance, only the last instalment is paid after submission of the final report and at the earliest in the second half of the last month of the scholarship. This is a maximum lump sum for all costs incurred during the stay abroad; costs such as insurance or travelling to and from the country cannot be paid separately by us.

As Marietta Blau-Grant holders should be able to concentrate fully on the project they have applied for, you must be released from any employment for the duration of your scholarship stay (with or without salary, the amount of salary is not relevant). We will only be able to send you the official award documents once you have provided the relevant proof.

Scholarship holders are not allowed to engage in gainful employment. Exempt is marginal employment within research/the Arts at universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions in compliance with residence laws and employment laws for foreign nationals (in 2024: 518.44 Euro per month). Marginal employment does not have to be reported to the OeAD. In contrast to a leave of absence, there is an income cap, as this employment also involves work. The restriction to a marginal income also leads to a time limit and should allow you to focus on the Marietta Blau project.