Please come back later

The application portal for our PhD fellowship is not open at the moment. It will open one month before the next deadline. 

There are three deadlines each year: 1 February, 1 June, 1 October

The Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) awards PhD fellowships to European citizens working in Europe or overseas and to non-European citizens pursuing their PhD projects in Europe *.

The PhD projects must be experimental, in the field of basic biomedical research, and aimed at elucidating basic biological phenomena of human life and acquiring new scientific knowledge.

For further requirements, see Who can apply and below as well as our FAQs.

At the deadline

  • Your first university entrance qualification (secondary or high school leaving certificate, A-levels, or entrance/access test for first university studies after finishing school) must not have been completed more than 8 years, i.e. 96 months ago.
  • Natural scientists should have been awarded their last university degree before embarking on their PhD (BSc, diploma, MSc, or equivalent). If you have not yet finished your MSc studies and/or have not received your MSc degree certificate by the deadline, you can submit it up to four months after the deadline.
  • Physicians, veterinary surgeons, and pharmacists should have passed their state examinations.

Candidates from the same laboratory

If two candidates from the same laboratory apply for a PhD fellowship at the same time, only one of them may receive a fellowship. We, therefore, recommend that they apply at different deadlines.

Timing of application

You should apply when you are about to start, or have just started, your PhD project, no preliminary results are expected. If you have begun your project more than six months prior to the deadline, you are no longer eligible to apply.

Definition of the start of a PhD project

  • If you continue to work in your MSc/BSc thesis research group: the date at which you obtained your highest degree (e.g. BSc, MSc, diploma, DEA, licenciatura, laurea) before embarking on your PhD.
  • If you change the research group: the month of arrival at the laboratory in which you pursue your PhD project, irrespective of the project you started to work on.
  • If your PhD programme requires initial lab rotations and your last lab rotation is in your PhD lab: the end of your lab rotation period.

In other cases, e.g. when participating in MSc/PhD programmes or graduate schools without an official final examination prior to the PhD project, please contact us.

* For exceptions regarding Europeans having completed their secondary education outside Europe, please see FAQs.