Early Career Research Group Models
National and international funding opportunities

In addition to the traditional habilitation, the current research landscape in Germany offers alternative routes to qualify for a professorship – either through direct appointment as an assistant professor or by heading an early career research group.

A variety of early career research groups are hosted by or associated to TU Darmstadt. The university generally promotes the high scientific autonomy of the early career research group leaders by assigning them examination rights and a teaching load as part of their subsequent appointment to an assistant professorship in an ad personam process.

We summarise the most common university-related early career research group models below:

Emmy Noether Programme

Excellent young researchers with at least two years of international postdoc experience can apply for the competitive Emmy Noether Programme of the DFG. By heading an Emmy Noether research group with a maximum funding period of 5 years they can directly qualify for a professorship.

Title Head of the research group
XIVA – eXplainable Image and Video Analysis Dr. Simone Schaub-Meyer
Visual Inference Lab
Department of Computer Science
Co-constructions of learning and technology Dr. Kevin Liggieri
History of Technology
History and Social Sciences
Robot Learning for Mobile Manipulation in Assistive Robotics Professor Dr. Georgia Chalvatzaki
Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS)
Department of Computer Science
Activity, regulation and evolution of carbohydrate-active enzymes used in cell wall penetration by unicellular predators and parasitoids of microalgae Professor Dr. Sebastian Hess
Biology of Algae and Protozoa
Department of Biology
An integrative design-through-analysis paradigm for higher-order computational aerodynamics and aeroelasticity Professor Dr.-Ing. Dominik Schillinger
Numerical Mechanics
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
NextIoT: Enabling Next-Generation Internet of Things Applications using Synchronous Transmissions Prof. Dr. Marco Zimmerling
Networked Embedded Systems (NES)
Department of Computer Science
Boundaries of Helping under Conditions of Multiple Crises Dr. Greta Wagner
Sociology/Sociological Theory
History and Social Sciences

BMBF research groups


The objectives of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in promoting young scientists include improving the transitions from the scientific qualification phase to occupations and creating conditions under which scientific achievements of the highest possible quality can be provided.

To this end, the BMBF provides particularly qualified scientists with the opportunity to gain further scientific qualifications and conduct research in defined subject areas within the framework of junior research groups.

Titel Nachwuchsgruppenleiter:in
IKIDA – Interactive AI algorithms & cognitive models for human-AI interaction Dr.-Ing. Dorothea Koert
FG Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS)
FB Informatik
SINATRA – Künstliche Photosynthese Dr. Marcus Einert
RG (Photo)electrochemistry and -catalysis
Department Materials and Earth Sciences

ERC-Starting Grants

Starting grants offered by the European Research Council (ERC) for promoting early career researchers focus primarily on the excellence of the research project and the already demonstrated scientific autonomy and independence from the supervisor of the doctoral thesis. The early career research group can be based at a private or public research institution, funding is provided for up to 5 years. Learn more

Our EU for You! – The EU-Support Agency would be pleased to provide you with advice on the ERC funding lines.

Helmholtz Young Investigator Groups

Helmholtz Young Investigators Groups can be based at a Helmholtz centre or at a partner university. The topics covered by the group must be compatible with both a Heimholtz programme and, at the same time, the core focus of the university or the department. The funding programme is designed for talented postdocs with proven experience abroad. Applications can only be submitted during a call for proposals.

Title Head of young investigator group
Core-collapse supernovae: nuclei and matter at the extremes Jun.-Prof. Dr. Almudena Arcones
Institute for solid state physics
Department of Physics
VIP-QM Exploring Quark Matter with Virtual Photons Jun.-Prof. Dr. Tetyana Galatyuk
Institute for solid state physics
Department of Physics

Guidelines of TU Darmstadt (internal, in German)

Access restricted section: Log in to see this section.