Seed Funding Programme "University of Vienna Rainforest La Gamba"
Purpose and objectives
The University of Vienna’s new compensation and climate strategy prioritizes university-owned, science-related projects closely tied to research and teaching. A flagship is the “University of Vienna Rainforest” at the Tropical Field Station La Gamba in Costa Rica, which acquires, restores, and protects rainforest to strengthen research and contribute to the university’s CO₂ compensation.
The Seed Funding Programme aims to expand and diversify La Gamba–based research by financing short, early-stage pilot and feasibility studies, with special emphasis on interdisciplinarity. As true seed funding, it is intended to launch new lines of inquiry and collaborations, not full-scale or long-term projects. Funding supports scoping, method development, baseline data collection, and initial infrastructure to enable competitive applications, with successful seeds expected to deliver clear outputs and lead to proposals to major funders within 6–12 months.
Funding details
The programme is open to funding applications from all scientific disciplines and topics, provided they are related to research at the Tropical Field Station La Gamba. Desk‑based research and other preparatory work are permitted. There is no obligation to conduct on‑site work in La Gamba, but the funding is tied to the expectation of submitting a competitive external grant application.
Grant size:
- Up to €10,000 for single‑discipline/individual project applications
- Up to €20,000 for interdisciplinary cooperation projects
Project duration:
- max. 15 months
Special bonus: An additional €5,000 is awarded upon submission of a competitive external funding application resulting from the seed project.
Eligibilty:
- Senior scientists, assistant professors TT, associate professors and full professors from all disciplines and faculties/centres at the University of Vienna are eligible to apply. Continuous employment at the University of Vienna until 31 December 2031 is required.
- Academic staff with fixed-term contracts, such as postdoctoral researchers funded by third-party or global funding, lecturers and senior lecturers and private lecturers (Privatdozenten) are not eligible to apply.
Call deadline:
The deadline for submisions is 31 May 2026.
Application guidelines: Download PDF