Junior Research Groups

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) / Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) supports through different thematic research projects the setup of junior research groups.

Current Projects

• FiRe-UPec: Exploiting host pathways to treat antibiotic resistant uropathogenic Escherichia coli infections
  Dr. Carmen Aguilar – Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (Funding: since 2022)
   
• Qecs – Quantum dots as deterministic Efficient photonic Cluster-state Sources
  Dr. Tobias Huber-Loyola – Chair of Technical Physics (Funding: since 2022)

Qualified early career researchers have the opportunity to qualify for a university professorship over a period of six years by leading a junior research group on their own responsibility.

Current Projects

• A Novel Approach in Neuropharmacology: Targeting GABA(A)R-Associated Proteins
  Dr. Hans Michael Maric – Chair of Biotechnology and Biophysics (Funding: since 2021)
   
• Accurate, Exascale-Ready Methods for Theoretical Core-Level Spectroscopy of Complex Materials
  Prof. Dr. Dorothea Golze – Research Group Theoretical Chemistry (Funding: since 2021)
   
• AquaNaturesCultures – Still water economies in the Anthropocene
  Prof. Dr. Laura Otto – Chair of European Ethnology / Empirical Cultural Studies (Funding: since 2024)
   
• Behavioural strategies and neural mechanisms for robust navigation
  Dr. Hannah Haberkern – Chair of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Funding: since 2023)
   
• Continuous Order Transformations: A Bridge Between Ordinal Analysis, Reverse Mathematics, and Combinatorics
  Prof. Dr. Anton Freund – Chair of Mathematics III (Mathematics of Machine Learning) (Funding: since 2021)
   
• Computational analysis of music audio recordings: A cross-version approac
  Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christof Weiß – Professorship of Computational Humanities (Funding: since 2023)
   
• Controlled Degradable Nanocarriers for Reprogramming the Tumor Microenvironment Towards Anti-Cancer Immunity
  Prof. Dr. Lutz Nuhn – Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry (Funding: since 2018)
   
• Evolution of Social Wound Care in Ants
  Dr. Erik Frank – Chair of Zoology III – Animal Ecology (Funding: since 2022)
   
• Neural mechanisms enabling context-dependent sensorimotor flexibility
  Dr. Jan Marek Ache – Chair of Neurobiology and Genetics (Funding: since 2020)
   
• Neural representation of insect spatial memory
  Dr. Jerome Beetz – Chair of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Funding: since 2025)
   
• One-, Two- and Multi-Electron Transformations from Titanium(IV): Controlling Reductive Elimination for Small Molecule Valorization
  Prof. Dr. Gabriele Hierlmeier – Juniorprofessorship for Inorganic Molecular Chemistry and Catalysis (Funding: since 2026)
   
• Practical Reasons before Kant (1720-1780)
  Dr. Sonja Schierbaum – Institute of Philosophy (Funding: since 2019)
   
• Prime-CAR Inspection: Enhancing Cancer-Directed CAR-T Cells with Safety-Validated CRISPR Prime Editors
  Dr. Karl Petri – Department of Medicine and Outpatient Clinic (Funding: since 2024)
   
• Single-cell roadmap of megakaryocyte development
  Dr. Zoltan Nagy – Chair of Experimental Biomedicine I (Funding: since 2023)
   
• The Linguistic (Pre-)History of the Indo-Iranian Frontier
  Dr. Jakob Halfmann – Chair of Comparative Linguistics (Funding: since 2025)