29.03.2022 STEM Assistance for up to 40 female scientists
Approximately 40 female scientists from Ukraine receive immediate support. The research publishing company Springer Nature and the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung have contributed a total of €750,000 to finance the Philipp Schwartz Emergency Fund for researchers who have recently fled Ukraine.
The Philipp Schwartz Emergency Fund – established as part of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Philipp Schwartz Initiative – will finance an emergency assistance programme that will make it possible for universities and research institutes in Germany to take in displaced researchers from Ukraine for up to six months. The short-term fellowships provided in this connection will cover the recipient’s living expenses and give them time to initiate longer-term follow-on sponsorships. Approximately 40 female researchers and their families will be financed thanks to these contributions to the endowment capital of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative: €500,000 from the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung and €250,000 from the research publishing company Springer Nature.
It is planned to grant up to 40 short-term fellowships from the Emergency Fund within a very short time to selected female scientists from Ukraine who have already found a host at a German institute that offers a good match for them.
“We are very pleased about the contributions that the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung and Springer Nature have made to our endowment capital. The need for assistance is enormous. We – not only in the research field but also as a society – are faced with the challenge of helping displaced and traumatised individuals by providing adequate opportunities and arrangements”, said Hans-Christian Pape, President of the Humboldt Foundation.
“We are happy that thanks to this fund we are able to make offers to displaced researchers who are already known to us and their German mentors. Because right now our focus should be on helping as quickly as possible. At the same time, these short-term fellowships provide time for initiating additional sponsorships and funding. In other words, they are the first step toward securing funding that is geared to being as long-term as possible”, stressed Frank Albrecht, Programme Director of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative.
“In light of the current existential armed conflict, we see it as our responsibility to help scientists who have fled Ukraine. We are doing so as quickly and with as little red tape as possible. I am pleased that we have been able to set up this strong collaboration for this within a very short amount of time”, said Dr Felix Streiter, Managing Director of the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung.