Travel Grant

The DocSchool PhilKult financially supports the international mobility and visibility of its doctoral students by means of travel grants. These are intended for those members who are required to travel outside Vienna, either to make a presentation at a congress, conference or meeting; or else to undertake vital work for the dissertation. 

You will need to have completed your ‘FöP’ (Public Presentation of your research topic) and have a Doctoral Thesis Agreement. Your main supervisor must be at the University of Vienna. In addition, your Annual Progress Reports should be up-to-date (i.e. one per year) and you will be involved in the DocSchool in some way by, for example, attending events organized by your section or organizing your own activities.

The DocSchool is large and, understandably, only has a limited budget. You will only be able to apply for a travel grant according to certain financial limits which have been coordinated with the University of Vienna:

• €150 within Austria
• €300 within Europe
• €600 outside Europe

If you are employed as a PraeDoc Assistant by the University of Vienna, you can always first apply for travel grants from the central Faculty or the Centre for Translation Studies when that is possible according to the regulations and deadlines of these respective units.

You can apply for one travel grant per year in the course of your doctoral studies.

Yes, the DocSchool can finance conference fees for online conferences if you are presenting a paper up to a limit of €200.

It is not possible to combine a travel grant from the DocSchool PhilKult with other travel grants from the University of any other organisations:

If your particular destination is much further away or there are special costs involved, we recommend that you consider other organisations which may fund travel e.g. the programme 'Internationale Kommunikation' of the ÖFG or the scholarships offered by the BMBF. For more extensive travels there is the possibility of the  'Kurzfristiges Wissenschaftliches Auslandsstipendium' from the International Office of the University of Vienna, or a GO.INVESTIGATIVO from the ÖAW or a Marietta-Blau-Scholarship from the OeAD.

In addition, the DocSchool has launched a new ‘One-Off Travel Grant’ (up to €2,500) from January 2025 (details below).

There are no deadlines for travel grants. You can apply throughout the year, but your application should be submitted at least two weeks in advance of your trip.

The individual steps are simple:

1. fill in the application form for Travel Grants below, including a short description of the event as well as a simple plan of the costs involved;
2. attach a copy of your c.v.
3. attach the conference programme showing when you will be speaking or the invitation from the conference organisers for your presentation
4. combine this in one PDF document and send it to your Head of Section for approval

Once the Head of Section has approved your application, you are ready to go.

In addition, all doctoral students who are members of the DocSchool have the opportunity to apply for additional funds (up to a maximum of 2,500 euros) once during the course of their studies for a particularly important trip relevant to the dissertation that goes beyond the lump sum. This additional budget from central funds is applied for differently:

1. three months in advance of the planned trip
2. with a completed and signed application form below
3. accompanied by a statement detailing the special relevance for your dissertation
4. confirmation of the necessity of the trip from your supervisor
5. the application is sent directly to the Leadership Committee (ds.philkult@univie.ac.at with the subject ‘One-Off Travel Grant’)

One-Off Grants will only be approved by the Leadership Committee on the basis of the available budget.

Once you have successfully completed your trip, you are required to send a short report (max 1 page) of your experiences to ds.philkult@univie.ac.at (with the subject 'Travel Grant Report'). Details about the form of the Travel Report can be found below but please include basic details about the location, dates and organisers of the event. These reports are important for monitoring purposes and, together, give an overview of the activites of the DocSchool.