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Financing your doctorate

In the run-up to a doctorate, the question comes up about how to fund living expenses during your doctoral phase. To meet this need, on the one hand, doctoral student positions are available in your adviser’s sphere that are allocated to the academic unit as state-employee positions or that a third-party funding source such as the German Research Foundation (DFG) has set up. Alternatively, you can apply for a fellowship in advance of your doctorate. You can find various organizations and websites online where you can read about the terms for funding in each case. Before starting your doctorate, you should clarify with your adviser which funding model is appropriate for you and which conditions (e.g. a teaching obligation) are associated with the funding model in each case. Your doctoral project is fundamentally independent from the funding type; you can also be accepted for a doctorate without a contract or scholarship, e.g. if you are employed by a company at the same time. Doctoral students at Philipps-Universität Marburg can take advantage of financial support opportunities from the MArburg University Research Academy (MARA) itself under certain conditions: Doctoral fellowships, travel grants, conference grants and equal opportunity grants. You can find more information on individual funding options here.

Travel expenses

Over the course of a doctoral program, you may present your research results at conferences or participate in nonuniversity events. If you are an employee of the university, these would count as so-called business trips. You have to apply for and justify business trips like this in a timely fashion. You are entitled to reimbursement of travel expenses and accident insurance only if your business trip has been approved. Please also note that your business trip must be approved before you can book travel and accommodations. You can find all of the details and information about formalities as well as documents for preparing a business trip application and for reimbursement of your travel expenses here.

MARA offers financial support for travel (travel allowance), regardless of your contractual relationship. Here you will also find links to various scholarship and fellowship databases where you can research other funding providers such as the DAAD. Some academic associations also specifically offer travel grants for conferences. Oftentimes you can find further information on the respective conference homepage.

“Landesticket” (state transit ticket)

Employees of Philipps-Universität Marburg are entitled to use a state transit ticket (Landesticket) under the collective bargaining agreement. You can get information about this from the Human Resources Department .

Bicycle mobility

An advance for the purchase of a bicycle in accordance with Hesse State Directive of 20 November 2018  (Fahrrad-RL).