ICT25 / Submission Guideline / Full Proposal

• ICT25 / Submission Process
• ICT25 / Login and go to your proposal
• ICT25 / Update information about PIs
• ICT25 / Overview of chapters
• ICT25 / Details of chapters
• ICT25 / Signatures
• ICT25 / Proposal submission
• ICT25 / Applicant Response Phase

ICT25 / Submission Process

About the Submission Process 

• As projects undergo assessment by international reviewers, all proposals must be written in English.
• The length of the proposal is determined by character counts and page limits in case of uploads in the Funding Portal.
• Character counts include spaces.
• Please write precisely and address the required criteria, while also providing sufficient detail to allow an evaluation by international peers.
• The proposal will be reviewed by 3-4 external international reviewers very specific to the topic of your proposal. Please keep in mind that you are writing the proposal for both the expert reviewers and a comprehensive interdisciplinary jury

Submission of full proposals -> External written reviews -> Applicant response -> Jury meeting to select projects for funding -> Funding Decision via WWTF Board of Directors (early October 2025).

ICT25 / Login and go to your proposal

About the Funding Portal

• All entries are saved automatically. In case a “Save” button is not visible, please be assured that your data will have automatically been saved. 
• The system constantly validates and saves data in background. If it appears that your entries have not been accepted, please refresh the website. This should resolve the problem and might help when encountering other issues with the system
• WWTF aims to expand the system’s features in due time to streamline the online application process. We ask for your patience if not all potential features are ready at this point in time.
• All core team members (i.e., coordinating PI and co-PIs) can contribute to and edit the proposal before its submission. However, only one person can edit the proposal in the Funding Portal at any time.

Please note that only the coordinating PI (PI&C) can submit the proposal.

Login and go to your proposal

1. Go to https://fundingportal.wwtf.at/
2. Login with your credentials
3. You will see an overview of your proposal(s) and role(s) under the menu “My Proposals & Roles"

• A Click on “Short Proposal” to download a PDF of your submitted short proposal in case you need to return to the information in the short proposal.
• B Click on the project title to edit the full proposal
• C Click on your role to edit your specific role in this proposal 

ICT25 / Update information about PIs

Contact details, CV, and information about your role in the project have been automatically transferred from the short proposal to the full proposal. Please ensure your contact details are up-to-date. To update your CV, delete the previous document and upload a new CV as PDF.

Update “Roles and responsibilities within project” and “Specific competencies for the project” only if relevant. Please describe convincingly your expertise to accomplish the work in the project. Make sure that the information provided here is in accordance with the according chapter of the Work Programme upload. 

Step 1: Update your “Profile” if relevant

Upon login, go to “My Profile” in the top menu to update your profile. Please upload or update your CV based on the template provided. 

Please use the CV template provided in the Funding Portal. Please use the following template:"All other calls: wwtf_cvtemplate_project.docx"

• List all items in reverse chronological order.
• For each of the selected publications (max. 10), provide 1-2 sentences outlining the relevance of the publication for the proposal.
• If possible, please also provide a link to a more detailed list of your publications. This may be your institutional website, personal website, an ORCID profile, Google Scholar profile, etc.
• Describe additional qualifications or skills that are relevant for the success of the project. These may extend beyond scientific skills to experience in leadership, supervision, Open Science, etc.

Different CVs in case of the submission of two proposals

 

Applicants have the possibility to submit two proposals. This may necessitate slightly different versions of the CV (publications specific to the proposals). In this case, the following procedure is recommended:

• Upload the CV for Proposal A in "PROFILE" (top menu)
• Go to "MY PROPOSALS & ROLES" (top menu)
• On this page in section "My roles" click on "Principal Investigator and Coordinator" of Proposal A
• In the page that opens click on the green button "Refresh from Profile"

Now, the CV is imported from your profile to Proposal A, and only to Proposal A! 

• Again, go to "PROFILE" (top menu), delete the existing CV and upload the new CV for Proposal B
• Go to "MY PROPOSALS & ROLES" (top menu)
• On this page in section "My roles" click on "Principal Investigator and Coordinator" of Proposal B
• In the page that opens click on the green button "Refresh from Profile"

As a result, Proposal A and B should have different CVs. 

Do not exceed 2 pages for the CV, as the system will not accept the upload of documents longer than 2 pages.

Step 2: Update your “Role” if relevant

Go to “My Proposal & Roles” in the top menu. Under “My Roles”, click on your role below the title of the proposal.

• • You can update the personal information by clicking on “Refresh from profile”. The system will check if there is new information in “My Profile” and update this section accordingly. 

  • Enter data in the respective fields:

    • Scientific expertise

    • Role and responsibilities within the project (500 characters)

    • Specific competencies for the project (500 characters)

Please note that the information entered here should be specific to the project. If you are participating in multiple proposals that require different subsets of your expertise, please tailor the information according to the project.

ICT25 / Overview of chapters

The proposal is comprised of six chapters, each under a separated tab:

• Basic Information
• Personnel and Institutions
• Project
  
• Budget
• Signatures

A chapter with a red alert symbol indicates that it is incomplete. Within the marked chapter, click on the red symbol(s) beside individual sections to highlight the fields requiring attention.  A green checkmark symbol indicates that the information in the chapter is complete.

Please note that the symbols might not refresh immediately even if the information in the chapter is complete. Changing to another chapter and going back to the other will refresh the symbol. 

ICT25 / Details of chapters

Basic Information

This chapter contains basic information about the full proposal, including title, scientific disciplines involved, keywords, duration, and type of project (i.e., regular WWTF Project or Joint Project). Fill out fields as required.

Please note:

• The project title, acronym, nominated scientific disciplines and type of project (regular WWTF Project or Joint Project) can no longer be changed.
• Please note that you cannot change the duration of the project.
  • In case that it is absolutely necessary to change the duration, please contact the programme manager. Please also note that the duration of the project can still be changed when concluding the contract. WWTF also allows for the cost neutral prolongation of the project once it is running for up to one year without any justification. 
• Keywords: Keywords may still be edited or added. These will help the WWTF identify appropriate reviewers for your proposal.
• Suggested peer reviewers: Applicants must suggest five international peers whom they deem qualified to review the proposal. To enable the selection of a balanced set of reviewers, please provide keywords or phrases to describe the reviewers’ fields of expertise. Suggested reviewers must be based outside of Austria and have no conflict of interests with project applicants (complete team and collaborators). Persons with whom the project applicants have worked together (joint publications, research cooperations, etc.) in the last five years will not be considered. Please note that the WWTF will decide if suggested peers will be contacted for reviewing, and WWTF may take different reviewers to those you suggested. As a rule, WWTF will include a maximum of two reviewers suggested by the applicants. The other reviewers are suggested by the jury and/or WWTF office to avoid bias.
• Excluded peer reviewers: Applicants may, without stating any reasons, exclude up to three individuals from reviewing their proposal. 

In order to suggest eligible and unique reviewers, the jury will be informed about the reviewers suggested and excluded by the applicants. The reviewers nominated by the applicants will be not be disclosed to the reviewers themselves. Each proposal is generally reviewed by four (and no less than three) reviewers.

Personnel and Institutions

Please note that the addition, removal, or substitution of core team members (PI&C, co-PIs) are not permitted at this stage. WWTF may make exceptions in well-argued circumstances (e.g., a co-PI moving to an institution abroad or leaving the academic field). Please contact WWTF in such a case. WWTF reserves the right to exclude projects from further evaluation in cases in which PIs can no longer be part of the project team. 

Further partner institutions: Collaborating institutions beyond those of the core team members can be added in this stage. Please note that every person involved in the project must be linked to an institution in order to allow indication of time commitment and salary in the “Budget” section. A signature will be required from the authorizing persons at the core team members’ institutions and at all further partner institutions. A maximum of five different institutions (including those of the core team members) is permitted. Should a project be funded, the addition of further collaborations will be possible.

Project

This chapter contains the scientific work programme. Fill out the following fields:

Please note that the character limit includes spaces

Lay summary (1,000 characters)

Please provide a description of your proposed research that is suitable for the general public. This will primarily be used by WWTF for communicating your work to non-experts for fundraising and public relations purposes. 

Scientific abstract (2,000 characters) 

Please provide a concise scientific abstract of the project. This will be used in approaching reviewers. 

Work programme: Please use the template provided for download in the WWTF Funding Portal. The headings in bold are mandatory (details and guiding questions can be found in the template). Upload the completed document as PDF (max. 15 pages including figures)

1. Introduction and background

• • • Subject of the research

    • State of the art and key scientific challenges (including own scientific work / past and currently running projects relevant to the proposed project)

2. Hypotheses and objectives 

• • • Research questions and hypotheses
    • Objectives of the project

3. Innovativeness and expected results

• • • Novelty of the proposed research
    • Expected results and relevance to field of ICT

4. Methodological approach 

• • • Research methods
    • Research plan (including Gantt chart)
    • Feasibility and risk mitigation
      

5. Mid- to long-term academic and societal impacts

6. Project team 

• • • Roles and expertise of personnel

    • Collaborative elements of project, including interdisciplinary aspects

    • Project management and supervision

7. Key references 

Please note that potential sex/gender aspects of the research topic and gender balance in the research team should be considered throughout the application (see this section). These should be briefly described where appropriate in the relevant sections.

Ethical considerations (500 characters)

Indicate if ethical approval of an ethics committee or institutional review board is required for the project. If so, please describe the potential ethical aspects and upload the ethical approval(s) as a single PDF. There is no page limit for the approvals, but the document may not exceed 10 MB. If no ethical aspects are identified, please also provide a brief statement.

Data Management (500 characters) 

In case of funding, a detailed data management plan must be submitted at the start of the project. At the full proposal stage, we encourage applicants to consider and briefly address the following points as appropriate:

• What kind of accompanying metadata and documentation will help others identify, discover, reuse, and/or reproduce the research data?
• How will data for sharing and preservation be selected?
• When will data be shared?
• In which repositories will data be archived? How long will data be retained?
• What persistent identifiers (e.g., DOI) and usage licenses (e.g., CC BY) will be used?

Use of generative AI (800 characters)

Please describe if and how GenAI has been used in developing your research proposal. Please see further details here.

Budget

Please note the following guidelines for the budget:

• Maximum 15% difference between the budgets of the short and full proposals is permitted.
• For personnel costs, an annual 3.5% p.a. increase in salary over the lifetime of the project has been pre-programmed. This is intended to assist with planning only, and actual salaries should be paid according to institutional or collective agreements. Please use baseline salaries according to the date you expect to start the project. (The project should start the latest January 2026.) Please contact your institutional research support services in this matter.
• Non-personnel costs should not exceed 25% of the total requested budget.

Personnel costs

• Core team members of the short proposal are automatically listed in the respective table.
• Click “Additional person” to individually add all persons who will work on the project. Please provide their name or select “is N.N.” if the role is to be filled (e.g., PhD candidate, Post Doc). Indicate the affiliation and staff category of each person using the dropdown menu. If an affiliation is not listed, return to the section “Personnel and Institutions” and add the respective institution. Each person must be assigned to an institution.
• Specify if the person will be financed by WWTF or contribute on an in-kind basis, and indicate their yearly time commitment to the project for each year (full time equivalents). A mixture of WWTF and in-kind financing is permitted.
• For persons financed by WWTF, enter the annual salary that corresponds to 100% employment in the first year of the project (keep that in mind in particular for PhD candidates whose position is often cal-culated on a 0.75 basis). The total funding requested for each person will be automatically calculated.

Non-personnel costs

• Add rows to provide a concise overview of all non-personnel costs directly related to the project. Please select the institution and cost category from the dropdown menus. If an affiliation is not listed, return to the section “Personnel and Institutions” and add the respective institution.
• Costs for basic infrastructure (rent, telephone) are not permitted. Costs for larger equipment essential for the project may only be requested on a pro rata basis that also takes into consideration the propor-tion of time that the equipment will be used for this project.
• WWTF strongly encourages open access publications. Costs for Article Processing Charges (APCs) may be requested.
• Costs for data management purposes (e.g., curation, storage) are eligible.

Budget per region

• The share of the budget allocated to the regions “Vienna” and “Other” will automatically be shown for WWTF projects, and to the regions “Vienna”, “Lower Austria” and “Other” for Joint Projects.
• For regular WWTF projects, at least 80% of the requested funding must be allocated to the region “Vienna”. Up to 20% may be allocated to other partner(s), including partners in Lower Austria.
• For Joint Projects, the budget allocated to the region “Vienna” must be at least 51%. The share of the budget allocated to the region “Lower Austria” may range from 21% to 49%. Up to 20% may be allo-cated to any further partner(s) located in other regions (“Other”).

Cost overview

• Enter the overhead rate for each institution. WWTF permits a maximum of 20% overheads costs. Please consult each institutions’ research services to ensure compliance with all institutions’ internal regulations.

Explanation of Cost Planning (2500 characters) 

• Please provide an explanation of cost planning principles, also indicating access to resources that are already available.

Disclosure of other applications for funding (750 characters) 

• If you have applied for funding for this project (or parts thereof) at other organisations, please indicate this here. This will not impact the evaluation of this proposal.
• The WWTF policy on simultaneous submissions to other funding organisations does not allow double funding. If both of your proposals are funded, we will ask you to decide which funding you will accept.
• Double funding will be reviewed by the FWF. This means that the FWF will receive the list of projects and check whether a similar project has already been submitted to the FWF.

ICT25 / Signatures

Submission of the proposal requires the signatures of the authorized person(s) at the host institutions of each of the PI&C and co-PIs (“Authorization”) and all partner institutions. 

• Please consult your institutional research services regarding the person mandated to sign the proposals and plan sufficient time to obtain their signatures
• Make sure that you have added all participating institutions in the “Personnel and Institutions” section before downloading the signatures sheet, as these institutions will be included in the signatures sheet. Otherwise, the sheet might be incomplete.
• Enter the name of each authorized person in the online form. This information will be included in the PDF to be signed.
• Download the PDF using the link “You can generate the signature sheet here”.
• Signatures may be provided in various formats
  • Add a scanned or physical signature, and upload the form; or
  • Insert an electronic signature (e.g., A-Trust, Handysignatur) and upload the form. Please note that electronically signed PDFs cannot be merged into a single document
  • You will find the signed signature pages in the Project PDF only as a link

Please ensure signatures are dated. Undated signatures and re-use of signatures from the short proposal will not be accepted.

Unlike proposals in the previous Submission System, signatures from the core team are no longer required in the new Funding Portal.

ICT25 / Proposal submission

Once all symbols in all chapters are marked by green checkmarks, the proposal can be submitted. The “Submit proposal” button is at the bottom of the “Signatures” chapter. 

The PI&C will receive an automatic confirmation email when the Funding Portal receives the completed submission. Please check your emails after hitting the submit button. If you do not receive a confirmation email, please get in touch with the Call Manager.

You can access your submitted proposal as PDF on the page “My Proposals and Roles”. 

No changes are possible after the project has been submitted. After the indicated deadline, submission is no longer possible. Unsubmitted proposals will be excluded from the ensuing evaluation process.

ICT25 / Applicant Response Phase

Applicant Response Phase (22nd - 29th of August 2025, 2pm (CET))

The purpose of the applicant response step is to allow the core team to correct any factual errors or conceptual misunderstandings in the external peer reviews. The applicants should respond directly to reviewer comments in a constructive manner.

Scope of applicant response

As much as possible, the applicant response should refer to parts of the full proposal where the reviewer’s concerns are already addressed. Only where necessary and appropriate, should references to peer-reviewed publications in order to correct any factual inaccuracies in the reviews be provided. In addition to providing the DOI, applicants should clearly specify the section (figure, data, text) of the publication that supports their response. Pictures, graphs, or other documents themselves cannot be inserted or attached.

• New information, including new research results and methods, should not be provided.
• Applicant responses should not include references to any new awards, appointments, or publications that may have occurred since the submission of the full proposal.
• Both the scientific workplan and CVs are assessed as at the time of the full proposal submission, and therefore no updates should be provided. Such additional information will not be considered by the jury members.
• Response should be clearly presented, objective and concise. The limit of 3,000 characters (with spaces) applies for all teams. Thus, only include information that clearly addresses the points of the reviewer.

Process for applicants

• Applicants will be given 7 calendar days to respond to the peer reviews (22nd - 29th of August 2025, 2pm (CET)).
• All core team members will receive an email notification from the Funding Portal when the applicant response phase is open.
• Core team members are therefore strongly advised to regularly check their provided email address during the indicative time period.
• All core team members will have access to the anonymized reviews for their proposal and have the opportunity to edit the response.
• Only the PI&C can submit the final applicant response. Please note that this must be submitted by the specified time and date.

What will happen to the applicant response?

• The applicant’s response will be provided to the panel after the panel has received all external reviews and prior to the panel meeting to determine funding.
• Applicant’s responses will not be viewed by the external reviewers.
• The jury panel will be briefed about the scope of permitted responses and informed to ignore responses that fail to observe these guidelines. Panel members will consider how well applicants have addressed any concerns raised by the reviewers and will consider additional valid evidence provided within the response.
  
• Please note that, depending on its content and quality, the applicant response can potentially have positive and/or negative effects on the evaluation of the proposal by the jury panel. 

Submission of a response to reviews is not compulsory. However, the jury panel will be informed that all teams were provided with the opportunity to respond to reviews.