The TUM-IAS grants special funding for necessary expenses, particularly at the beginning of new research endeavors of TUM-IAS Fellows and Focus Groups for a limited number of projects. Fellows may also apply for PhD funding or equivalent and additional research assistance via the Start-up fund.

The TUM-IAS primarily supports projects with a high potential of landmark advances, even, if coupled with a high risk of failure. Project proposals can be submitted from all parts of TUM. The key criteria include the outstanding scientific performance of the applicant in the past, especially with projects that have delivered truly unexpected results, and the perspective of a seminal scientific breakthrough in the event of success.

The TUM-IAS has a total annual budget of 1.5 M € available for Start-up support. The TUM‑IAS pursues a strategy of scaled funding. Projects may receive preliminary funding and based on their initial success may receive additional funding. In this way, exploratory workshops, conferences for a limited number of participants, exchanges of scientists, etc. may be financed by the TUM-IAS first, with the expectation that ideas for future TUM-IAS Focus Groups, larger research networks or new research agendas will result from these actions. Precise funding needs should be discussed directly with the TUM-IAS office.

Recipients of Start-up funds must turn in a report to the TUM-IAS detailing the results of the funded project as well as technical documentation about the new instrument, device or process developed. The report on development projects can e.g. be in the form of a technical report for the equipment. Workshop reports should include conclusions and plans for the future. These reports will also be used in the Institute’s documentation.

In addition to funding seeding activities, TUM-IAS has a policy to support the development of instrumentation based on novel principles, in particular in the areas of advanced medical instrumentation and instrumentation for scientific purposes. However, TUM-IAS will not support the acquisition of standard equipment, although the use of it in the build up of new instrumentation may be.

TUM-IAS also has a policy of enhancing the environment for the transfer of scientific inventions to industrial usage. As TUM disposes of a good system to foster the creation of new companies (UnternehmerTUM), the efforts of TUM-IAS are purely directed to the pre-entrepreneurial phase, where newly discovered scientific methods or technologies are developed into industrially exploitable prototypes.

Please contact the TUM-IAS office directly in order to prepare proposals for research Start‑up support.