Since 2014, the participating federal states, together with the FWF, have launched 166 additional research projects with a total funding volume of €50.7 million (as of 2023). With additional funding from the Austrian Nationalstiftung, the FWF cooperates with the federal states where research projects are located to fund research projects that received excellent international reviews but could not be funded by the FWF for budgetary reasons. Based on their individual research policy priorities, federal states select projects for co-funding from this pool of excellent project proposals. This gives the participating federal states the opportunity to develop their own research strategies on a subsidiary basis using the FWF’s quality assurance procedure and gives excellently reviewed, high-quality research projects located in the federal states an additional chance to receive funding. Matching funds agreements are currently in place with Carinthia, Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg.
The Matching Funds model in detail
If applications submitted to the funding programs Principal Investigator Projects, ESPRIT, Elise Richter (including Elise Richter PEEK), Arts-Based Research, and Clinical Research for projects that will be conducted at a research institution in one of the participating federal states and for which the principal investigator is located in that federal state must be rejected due to a lack of budgetary resources, the Scientific Board will automatically contact the respective state government to propose co-financing. Projects with participations in several federal states are only proposed for funding to the federal state where the principal investigator is located.
As an applicant, you do not need to take any further steps. The FWF will inform you immediately if your proposal is forwarded to the respective federal state, and then within six to eight weeks of the decision made by your state. If you do not wish to wait for this decision, you are free to resubmit your application at any time on the basis of its reviews. If the state approves the co-financing option, however, you would have to withdraw this resubmission.
In the case of co-financing by a federal state, the FWF administers both the state’s share and the share of the project costs funded by the Nationalstiftung on a fiduciary basis. This does not affect the funding procedure with the research institution and the principal investigator, as the FWF remains your primary contact.
Co-financing with the Nationalstiftung and the Fonds Zukunft Österreich
This funding instrument is based on co-financing from funds of the Nationalstiftung and its successor organization, the Fonds Zukunft Österreich. A recommendation for co-financing with the respective federal state depends on the availability of these funds.