Announcement | 29. September 2025

Call for proposals: 4th NFDI4Culture Music Award

By Prof. Dr. Kathrin Kirsch and Dominik Leipold, M. Sc., M. A.

The NFDI4Culture Music Award honours projects and academic works that deal with musicological, music-related topics or with the cultural object of music in a broader sense and contribute in a special way to the objectives of the consortium's areas of activity.

The jury of the musicological community in NFDI4Culture will honour one submission in each of two categories.

Submit proposal

Submission period is 10-10 until 11-09-2025

 

Topics for Submission

We encourage you to engage with the areas of work of our consortium and recommend a reference in the submission to the following key areas:

• (further) development of standards for data formats for coding music-related or musicological (research) data
• (further) development of research software for music-related or musicological tools and applications
• contributions to the sustainable archiving and making available of music-related and musicological (research) data
• strategies in dealing with personality and copyright issues
• development of ideas for communicating music-related or musicological (research) data and results
• creation of opportunities and formats for collaboration across institutions

Categories

The award is presented in the following two categories each with a maximum prize of €3,000:

Category 1 (Qualification Projects):

Projects of various kinds can be submitted by students and doctoral candidates from all music-related disciplines whose results contribute to the areas of activity of NFDI4Culture..

Category 2 (Projects):

Projects of various kinds can be submitted by creative artists and scientists from all music-related disciplines whose results contribute to the areas of activity of NFDI4Culture.

 

Jury

The jury of the NFDI4Culture Music Awards is composed of specialist representatives from various disciplines, including representatives of NFDI4Culture, the Society for Music Research and ZenMEM. From all submissions received, the jury will select interesting projects for publication on a shortlist. The shortlist will then be used to select the two submissions that will be honoured with the award.

 

Application

The Culture Helpdesk is happy to provide preparatory support in identifying and developing possible links between your own project proposal and the consortium's objectives. The documentation of the points identified in the consultation will be valued in the jury's assessment of the applications.

The application should include the following documents:

Category 1

1. curriculum vitae

2. qualification work including the reviews

3. a description of the project that clearly shows how the work contributes to the objectives of NFDI4Culture and to what extent music-related data are included (1–2 pages)

4. overview of the planned use of project funds

Category 2

1. curriculum vitae

2. a description of the project that clearly shows how it contributes to NFDI4Culture objectives and how music-related data are included (2–3 pages)

3. relevant publications related to the project (e. g. essays, data publications, tools, reports, exhibitions or posters)

4. overview of the planned use of project funds

Applications can be submitted until 09. November 2025 with the Subject line NFDI4Culture Music Award to the Culture Coordination Office. If you have any questions, please also contact this address.

Submit proposal

By submitting a proposal, all participants declare that they have read and agreed to the Conditions of Participation.

 

Project Funding

The project funds associated with the award are earmarked** and enable the financing of chargeable expenses, such as travel expenses incurred in the context of participation in events such as conferences and symposia, costs for licence or access fees to literature, software or information systems relevant to the project work, working hours for technical support on a fee basis, publication costs or expenses for project-related workshops.

The funds must be used in the calendar year 2026 and settled with the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz. There is no entitlement to the project funds associated with the award and the project funds will not be passed on to individuals or third parties.

The detailed conditions of participation apply to all submissions.

 

Schedule

Schedule for the NFDI4Culture Music Awards

10.10.2025–09.11.2025	Submission of proposals
November 2025	Evaluation of the submissions
02.12.2025	Publication of a shortlist of selected submissions
06.12.2025	Announcement of the award winners
2026	Presentation of the submissions selected for the shortlist and the award during the Culture Community Plenary Honoring of the award winner(s) at the annual conference of the Society for Music Research – Gesellschaft für Musikforschung (GfM)