By awarding RTI endowed professorships, research structures and competencies at Lower Austrian locations of colleges and universities are strengthened and specific research topics are sustainably established in the fields of action of the RTI Strategy Lower Austria 2027.

The funding of endowed professorships serves to establish and expand critical variables in specific research fields. The aim is to promote outstanding research, increase the international visibility of research groups and improve the profile of Lower Austria as an RTI location. Inter-institutional cooperation is strengthened and the linking of science and research to economic and social issues is supported. In addition, tertiary education in the relevant subject area will be further developed and teaching expanded in order to contribute to an increase in the number of graduates in the long term.

The call for RTI Endowed Professorships 2022 focuses on the RTI field of action "Society and Culture," which also has the function of a cross-sectional issue in the RTI Strategy of Lower Austria 2027. Within the framework of this call, endowed professorships are to be submitted that deal with topics and challenges from at least one of the other three fields of action of the RTI Strategy Lower Austria 2027 ("health and nutrition," "environment, climate and resources," "digitalization, smart production and materials") from a humanities, social science and/or cultural science or interdisciplinary perspective.

In this sense, the endowed professorship must in any case be anchored at its core in the main disciplines of the social sciences or humanities. However, an interdisciplinary orientation is possible. Regardless of the specific scientific discipline, the thematic focus of the endowed professorship must be assignable to the fields of action "health and nutrition," "environment, climate and resources," "digitalization, intelligent production and materials." This should enable innovative solutions to current and future challenges in these fields of action.

In this call, € 2.500.000 is available as funding volume for two endowed professorships.

Supplementary information on the application process can be found in the "Application Guide".

Submission of project proposals is possible from 01.07.2022 to 30.11.2022, 12 noon.