Largest grant ever obtained by IST Austria goes to the ISTplus postdoc program

Following a competitive, EU-wide application process, the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) has succeeded in obtaining funds for an interdisciplinary, international, and intersectoral postdoc program called ISTplus. The program is funded through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND scheme and will support postdocs at the interface between science and other sectors, such as industry and policy. With a total award amount of almost 4.6 Million Euro, this is the single largest grant obtained so far by IST Austria, and after the ISTfellow and the ISTscholar programs it is the third program at IST to be funded through the COFUND scheme. A first call for applications for postdoc positions supported by the grant will be made this summer.

With the ISTplus program, IST Austria seeks to attract outstanding young scientists from all over the world. The fellowships are open to all postdocs moving to Austria from abroad or who have spent less than one year in Austria at the time of application. During their two-year fellowship, the postdocs will be integrated into a truly interdisciplinary research environment. They will interact closely with colleagues from different fields through shared facilities, joint projects, and events. IST Austria will moreover provide resources and support to help them successfully develop the necessary skills for their next career steps elsewhere. Already at the beginning of their stay, fellows will assess their professional profiles and skill sets together with a career counselor, dependent on the direction of their desired future career path, be it in the academic or in other professional sectors.

The ISTplus program replaces the previous postdoc funding scheme at IST Austria, ISTfellow, which has supported 40 postdocs over the past five years. In the framework of ISTplus, which will be launched in July 2017, 60 positions for postdocs will become available over the project duration. ISTplus offers two-year fellowships with competitive salaries, as well as additional funds for research and travel expenses. Applications can be from all scientific fields currently represented at IST Austria: biology, neuroscience, mathematics, physics, and computer science.

“One of the core missions of IST Austria is the training of world-class scientists. I am delighted that the EU’s Horizon 2020 program will continue to support us in this essential goal. The international, interdisciplinary, and especially the intersectoral aspects of the ISTplus postdoc program make IST Austria stand out among research institutions,” says IST Austria’s President Tom Henzinger.