Conditions for WPI membership

The conditions for membership are defined in the by-laws that can be changed only at a general assembly by a majority vote of the full members.

The basic guidelines are:

There is no condition of Austrian nationality for membership; all scientists working in Austria are welcome. Upon decision of the board, any individual or corporation may become an associate member .
Particularily welcome are scientists who intend to apply for a project eligible for full membership. They can profite from the experience and infrastructure of the WPI for preparing their proposal and find high-level partners for setting up interdisciplinary projects.

The condition to become a full member is a high-level grant/award project with a minimum duration of three years. The core requirement is that the evaluation of the award/grant has to be on the highest international level, independent of national/political influence. A "best practice" evaluation procedure is the jury for the START and Wittgenstein awards, which is composed of thirteen (solely foreign) world renowned scientists who nominate up to 10 international high-level referees for each candidate for an award.

Currently the following type of projects are explicitly eligible for full membership :

• Wittgenstein award, as evaluated by the FWF

• START award as evaluated by the FWF

• EURYI and ERC award of the European commission

• Speaker of a Wissenschaftskolleg, Doktoratskollegs, Sonderforschungsbereich or Nationales Forschungsnetzwork as evaluated by the FWF

• WWTF chair

• Coordinator of a European project in particular coordinator of a Research Training Network, a Marie Curie Training Site, a Center of Excellence

Full membership is only temporary and expires one year after the end of the underlying project.
Thereafter, the full member becomes a corresponding member for lifetime.

Major decisions are reserved for full members.
This ensures that the decision body at the WPI is composed merely of active scientists running large projects.

While active voting rights are reserved for full members, associate and corresponding members are eligible to be board members, director or president .