Eligibility and terms

Competition for the award is tied to a master thesis in economic and/or psychological research that relates to C-SEB’s overall topics. Students with proposals for planned master theses, or with master theses submitted between November 1^st, 2024, and April 30^th, 2025 are eligible. All master students can be nominated who are/were enrolled as students at the University of Cologne (UoC) for their master thesis and whose master thesis supervisor is a member of the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences or the Faculty of Human Sciences. Any supervisor can nominate only one student per round.

Financial means can be granted for as long as the award winners (1) are themselves members of the UoC (student/employee/stipend holder), or (2) conduct the research in collaboration with a researcher who is employed at or receives a stipend from the UoC.
 

Selection procedure

The content of the master thesis and/or research project must relate to C-SEB’s overall topics. Decisive criteria for the award are the overall academic excellence of the student (nominee) as well as the scientific quality and originality of the master thesis project and/or additional research proposal. The C-SEB Executive Board selects among the duly received nominations.
 

Nomination procedure

The nomination deadline is April 30^th, 2025. Nominations are submitted via a LimeSurvey questionnaire (by either the nominee or the nominating supervisor); the link to the questionnaire is emailed to eligible researchers. Please prepare the documents and information listed below. Once you have started the nomination questionnaire, you can create a login to resume the questionnaire again later („Resume later“ in the upper right corner of the survey).
 

Required documents

Please prepare the following documents for upload in PDF format:

Master thesis project description — The description is limited to 1 page plus references (≤ 1 page) using the mandatory .docx template (download ⭳), converted into a single PDF file for upload. The description must be written in a way that is easily understood by scientists in both the economics and psychology disciplines and include information on theoretical background, hypotheses, methods, and, if applicable, results or an explanation of the financial plan.

If applicable: Research proposal building on a completed master thesis — The proposal is limited to 1 page plus references (≤ 1 page) using the mandatory .docx template (download ⭳), converted into a single PDF file for upload. The proposal must be written in a way that is easily understood by scientists in both the economics and psychology disciplines and include information on theoretical background, hypotheses, methods, budget, and the nature of the nominee’s involvement in the project.

Laudation by the supervisor — The laudation must cover the nominee’s overall academic achievements and the scientific contribution of the master thesis project. The laudation is limited to 1 page using the mandatory .docx template (download ⭳), converted into a single PDF file for upload.

Terms & conditions — A copy of the terms and conditions (download ⭳), signed by both the nominee and the supervisor.

CV — Short CV of the nominee (≤ 1 page).

Transcript of records — The nominee’s current UoC transcript of records.
 

Required information

Please prepare the following information for entry into the questionnaire in plain text format:

Summary master thesis project description — A summary of your master thesis description of 850 characters or less.

Relevance to C-SEB’s thematic focus — A description of your master thesis project’s relevance to C-SEB’s thematic focus in 600 characters or less: How does the master thesis project contribute to C-SEB’s overall research agenda?

If applicable: Explanation of the financial plan — Prepare an explanation of the requested funds (which is also a part of the master thesis description or the research proposal) that briefly describes your specific calculations for each expense category of 850 characters or less. Calculate the cost of student assistants based on PANDA ⭳. If you plan to work with providers/companies abroad (e.g., Prolific), include/add the 19% VAT that the UoC has to pay to the German tax office. If the requested C-SEB funding (max. 2,000 €) covers only a portion of the total funds needed, please state the total amount needed and explain where the missing amount will come from.

If applicable: Explanation for resubmission — If this or a similar project has been nominated or submitted for funding before, please describe where and when. If applicable, include the amount of funding awarded (and how it was used) or the reasons for previous rejections. Nominations previously rejected by C-SEB may only be resubmitted, if a C-SEB Executive Board member endorses the nomination. If applicable, provide the name of the C-SEB Executive Board member who endorses the current nomination.
 

Have ready

Please have the following information ready for entry into the questionnaire:

(Expected) submission date of your master thesis (dd/mm/yyyy)

(Expected) exmatriculation date (dd/mm/yyyy)

If you apply for funds: Expected start date of the project (mm/yyyy) — Please note that we expect to announce the funding decisions no later than the end of June 2025. Funding can only be used for expenses incurred after the date of the decision letter.

If you apply for funds: Expected completion date of the project (mm/yyyy) — Please note that funding is currently only available until the end of December 2025. If the UoC continues to provide funding beyond 2025, an extension of the funding period to June 30^th, 2026 is possible (but not guaranteed). If funding is to be spent on research building on a completed master thesis, and if the nominee will not be a UoC member themselves until the end of the project duration, you will be asked to enter the name, affiliation, employment status, and employment duration of the collaborator at UoC.

In a nutshell