Objective and basic conditions for application

The Environment Commission (EC) advises the University Executive Board on all environmental and ecological sustainability issues. Representatives of university lecturers, academic staff, technical and administrative staff, and students form the Commission. The EC makes recommendations on goals and measures for an environmentally friendly and sustainable university. It also drafts plans for uniformly addressing these topics at TU Dresden. Using an allocated budget, it supports projects and measures that promote the development of TU Dresden into a sustainable university.

TU Dresden members are expressly urged to actively participate in shaping our university into an environmentally friendly and sustainable place of work and study. The enclosed form can be used to apply for funding to implement your own environmental and ecological sustainability measures in 2024. Applicants will receive EC funding if the submitted proposal is assessed and evaluated positively by a jury of EC representatives. Funding is not available after 2024.

The attached form must be filled out for each proposed measure.

1. Funding from the EC for environmental measures

The EC seeks to promote innovative measures that support TU Dresden’s ecological and sustainable development. Applications should be aligned with the Environment Commission’s six areas of activity: governance, campus & operations, research, teaching, digitalization, dialogue & transfer.

Measures that develop ecological sustainability at TU Dresden in the aforementioned fields of action are given priority for funding.

Some examples of suitable measures include:

• Measures that intensify transfer between research and practice or promote public discourse on sustainable development
• Measures that enshrine aspects of ecological sustainability such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and resource conservation in the structures and processes at TU Dresden
• Measures for making research and teaching more ecologically sustainable
• Measures that raise awareness of sustainable action at TU Dresden
• Measures that support research into sustainability
• Events in the area of education for sustainable development (ESD) at TU Dresden or measures that promote framework conditions to facilitate ESD
• Development of digital solutions that will support sustainable action at TU Dresden or conscientious promotion of digital transformation, taking the Sustainable Development Goals into account
• Measures promoting the mutual transfer of knowledge and technology with society as concerns ecological sustainability
• Measures promoting joint ecologically sustainable development, e.g. with organizations such as the SLUB library, Studentenwerk Dresden, the DRESDEN-concept alliance and the City of Dresden
• Measures for creating ecologically sustainable programs on campus, in particular those that make research and teaching more appealing
• Measures that particularly link a university's primary tasks of research and teaching with sustainability

You will find a selection of measures which received funding in previous years on the EC’s website.

2. Evaluation of the measures

The following criteria are used to evaluate the proposed measures:

• Completeness and quality of the application
  • Strategy development and feasibility on account of the responsible team and partners, and plausibility of the criteria for success
  • Quality of timeline planning, cost estimation and/or financial planning as well as task descriptions
• Impact and added value for ecological sustainability and the environmental situation at TU Dresden
  • Size of target audience
  • CO₂ emissions savings, resource savings
  • Cost-benefit analysis
• Visibility at TU Dresden and in the City of Dresden, the Free State of Saxony, Germany, the EU, the world
• Innovative character and potential synergistic benefits in research and teaching
• Possible consolidation strategy subsequent to initial funding and responsibility for procured items and further implementation of the measure beyond 2024

3. Eligibility

All members of TU Dresden can submit proposals. All proposals must be endorsed by a voting member of the Environment Commission prior to submission. You will find a list of the voting members here on the Environment Commission’s website. Proposals which have not been endorsed will not be considered.

4. Proposal guidelines

The relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the ecologically sustainable development of TU Dresden, or the individual areas of activity need not be clarified in the application text.

However, the level of detail of the financial plan and of activity descriptions must be explained.

Rates for Student Assistants and Research Assistants must be specified. Moreover, it must be ensured that Student Assistants only undertake research tasks and do not perform any administrative tasks.

Price information (including VAT) found online is sufficient for planned procurements.

4.1. Proposal submission

A proposal can only be submitted using the provided form. The proposal should be coordinated in advance with the supporting voting member of the Environment Commission, since endorsement can only be made if said member is familiar with the content of the proposal. The final proposal must be sent as a PDF file via email to the Environment Commission at: .

The submission deadline is July 14, 2023. Submissions made after this deadline will not be considered. Documents requested by the EC must be provided within 14 days.

4.2. Duration and financial framework

Funding is provided for measures in the year 2024. In general, each project receives somewhere between EUR 500 and EUR 8,000 in funding, but lesser or greater funding is also possible. The funds must be spent in 2024.

4.3. Selection process and funding approval

A jury of representatives from the EC is responsible for the selection. This selection is confirmed within the EC, and the University Executive Board grants final authorization. Following the University Executive Board’s decision, funding approval is set to be passed by the Head Office of the Environmental Commission in the final quarter of 2023 at the latest.

Application information

Application form