Building bridges for US medical researchers

Click here for German version 

The programme is funded with ten million euros for 2025 and is to be continued in subsequent years. With the new ‘Else Kröner Excellence Grants 2025’ programme, the Foundation is now supporting medical faculties and medical universities in Germany in attracting leading international medical researchers from the USA to Germany. ‘We are currently experiencing that excellent research in the US is becoming more difficult,’ says Dr Dieter Schenk, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the EKFS. ‘This programme is our response to a worrying development. In times of increasing restrictions on academic freedom, we want to open up prospects for outstanding medical researchers in a stable academic environment.’

Funding will be flexible - for example, a three million euro grant can be applied for for a professorship, which will be stabilised after six years. However, other models are also possible and encouraged. ‘We are very open when it comes to applications and the intended use of the funding. The main requirement will be that the funding makes a decisive contribution to attracting researchers,’ explains Prof Dr Michael Madeja, Chairman of the Board of the EKFS. ‘With this programme, we want to send out a signal and promote Germany as a research location. 

Interested medical faculties or universities can submit an informal draft application to the foundation by 15 June 2025 in accordance with the following call for proposals.

Tender specification

For decades, successful medical research in the USA has contributed to curing diseases and saving lives worldwide. Restrictions on scientific freedom and the loss of funding for undesirable fields of research are increasingly affecting some scientists living and researching in the USA. In this phase, the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation would like to offer outstanding scientists (m/f/d) the opportunity to successfully continue their medical research in Germany with the Else Kröner Excellence Grants. To this end, medical faculties and medical universities wishing to offer an outstanding scientist from the USA a research environment in Germany can apply for funding from the Foundation. The foundation will make a total of 10 million euros available for this purpose in 2025. 

The prerequisites for submitting an application are: 

• Concrete plans - in a later stage of the selection process also commitments - of the host institution for the long-term employment of the scientist currently working in the US 
• Outstanding research environment of the host institution in the research area of the scientist to be recruited (e.g. a thematically relevant Cluster of Excellence or Collaborative Research Centre) 
• Funding concept, possibly with an offer of additional personal contributions and presentation of work opportunities at the host institution 
• Internationally outstanding achievements of the scientist in the field of medical research (comparable, for example, with the reputation of recipients of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, an ERC Advanced Grant or a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator) 
• Documented willingness of the scientist to change with justification of the advantages of the change for his/her scientific work

The selection procedure consists of several steps. Initially, we request an informal application outline of a maximum of three pages, which describes the international excellence of the researcher (including CV, list of publications and third-party funding), the significance of their research for the further development of medicine at the location and beyond, the employment model of the host institution (with the funding requirement applied for) and the outstanding role of the location in the research field (including key figures). 

Each medical faculty or university can submit one application per call round through the dean or president, if applicable together with the medical director of the university hospital. 

The application deadline for this first call for proposals is June 15, 2025. 

One example of a possible form of funding is a grant of 3 million euros for the establishment of a professorship, which will be made permanent after six years. Another example is the endowment of a professorship over a period of several years. Other funding models are possible and proposals are welcome. 

The selection procedure will be carried out with the greatest possible confidentiality. 

Queries and applications should be sent by e-mail to the Chairman of the Board of the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation, Prof Dr Michael Madeja: m.madeja@ekfs.de. 

Source: Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung

22.04.2025

• economy (1041)
• research (3313)