About Zukunftskolleg

The Zukunftskolleg is an Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at the University of Konstanz. It offers 2-year Postdoctoral and ZENiT Research Fellowships for early career researchers. The fellows profit from excellent research conditions and state-of-the-art facilities. Thanks to a comprehensive and diverse support network, the talented researchers can completely concentrate on their projects. The Zukunftskolleg creates ideal working conditions for junior researchers and provides them with the best possible preparation for their scientific careers.

For this, the Zukunftskolleg has a unique way of promoting postdoctoral researchers and junior research group leaders: Its 5i strategy fosters early independence with an international, intergenerational, intra-university and interdisciplinary angle.

Early independence is the key idea behind the Zukunftskolleg. Researchers are able to carry out research free of restraints early in their career. The fellowships enable them to implement independent research projects or to build their own research groups.

Since science is a communal enterprise, fellows do not only belong to the Zukunftskolleg, but also to their respective departments at the University of Konstanz where they have the opportunity to teach. This is what we call intra-university.

The inspiring and diversified research environment provides invaluable opportunities for our fellows to encounter and exchange ideas and information with other up-and-coming colleagues from different disciplines as well as distinguished senior researchers that can be invited as mentors or Senior Fellows. Thus, the Zukunftskolleg promotes interdisciplinary and intergenerational exchange.

Since scholars in the humanities, social and natural sciences come to Konstanz from across the world to perform first-class research the fellow community is quite international.

The Zukunftskolleg is a keystone in the University of Konstanz‘s institutional strategy to promote top-level research and is funded by the German federal and state governments‘ Excellence Strategy.