PhD Scholarships

Any nationality and country of residence. Applicants must be doctoral candidates in the historical humanities and meet the Foundation’s degree, age-at-graduation and full-time-research conditions.

Doctoral candidates in archaeology, history, art history, historical Islamic studies, history of law, prehistory/early history or history of science may apply; neighbouring disciplines require a predominantly historical research question. Predominantly contemporary projects are excluded. Applications are accepted from doctoral researchers of any nationality and in any location. You need a degree qualifying you for doctoral study, normally a Master’s, with an overall German grade of 1.5 or better or an assessed foreign equivalent. The Foundation assesses foreign degrees and legal-examination grades separately; provisional written degree results are accepted. Formal doctoral registration or confirmation of a university place is not required at submission. The age criterion concerns age at the qualifying degree, not current age: the main criteria say the degree must normally have been obtained by age 27, with extensions for night school, bringing up children, military/civil service, work experience and other exceptional circumstances. Other FAQ passages use 28/29 wording; applicants near this boundary should confirm their individual case directly with the Foundation. Only full-time scholarships are available. The provider excludes simultaneous salary or pension receipt and lists a maximum of five hours a week in other employment; confirm any work arrangement with the Foundation. It excludes dissertation-completion funding, short final awards, standalone doctoral travel stipends, college/tuition fees, and top-up support for doctoral projects already funded elsewhere or self-funded. A rejected doctoral proposal may be revised and resubmitted once; after two unsuccessful applications, no further doctoral-scholarship application is accepted, including on another topic. Doctorates must start within twelve months of the grant being agreed. Applications and the two required academic references must be complete and in German or English.

1. Use the Foundation’s PhD scholarship form and upload the required German or English proposal, work plan, CV and degree evidence. Arrange the two academic references through the provider’s recommendation process.
2. Read the full application and file-format requirements. Complete and separately confirm the form summary before electronic submission.
3. Applications have no fixed deadline. Read the complete provider rules, including the age-at-graduation exceptions and the differing FAQ wording, before applying.