Priority Programme “Random Geometric Systems” (SPP 2265)
In March 2019, the Senate of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) established the Priority Programme “Random Geometric Systems” (SPP 2265). The programme is designed to run for six years. The present call invites proposals for the second (and last) three-year funding period.
Phenomena that emerge from an interaction between random influences and geometric properties are ubiquitous and extremely diverse. They appear in physics (e.g., condensation or crystallisation in interacting random particle models for equilibrium and non-equilibrium situations), materials science (e.g., electrical conducting properties in metals with impurities), in telecommunication (e.g., connectivity in spatial multi-hop ad-hoc communication networks), and elsewhere. The origins and the mechanisms that lead to the phenomena are often deeply hidden. Bringing them to the surface often requires serious research activities, many of which have to be theoretical by the nature of the problem.
This Priority Programme is devoted to the mathematical analysis of effects and phenomena that emerge from an interplay between randomness and geometry. Many questions of intrinsic mathematical interest will be studied. Disciplines like physics, materials science and telecommunication will be crucial sources of problems, applications, motivations, models and solutions. The main focus will lie on the development of new and the refinement of existing methods, and on the creation and analysis of new random spatial models. Approaches to render approximate theories in statistical physics more rigorous as well as the exploration of the mathematical foundations for physically relevant models will be highly welcome.
Goals comprise the rigorous description and analysis of emergence of macroscopic phenomena like condensation, percolation, crystallisation, vitrification; geometric functionals of random structures like Minkowski functionals and tensors, and cluster counts; new limiting geometries; geometric systems driven by correlated spatial randomness; metastability in spatial processes away from equilibrium; effects arising from kinetic or geometric constraints; new applied spatial random models. The Priority Programme is expected to push forward substantial developments into various timely directions, like time-dependent random media, continuous-space modelling, long-range dependence of interactions, description of entire geometries instead of characteristic quantities, or the introduction of spatiality into mean-field models.
The research of this Priority Programme will mostly evolve around the following main areas: random point processes, random fields, statistical physics, percolation in the continuum, random geometric graphs, energy-based random point configurations, dynamics in random media. Establishing cross-connections will be highly welcome. Stochastic homogenisation does not belong to the topics of this Priority Programme.
Analytical work shall be dominant in this Priority Programme. Important impulses and progress will also come from the field of mathematical statistics; mathematical work that leads to the development of statistical tools for the analysis of geometric data will be welcome to the Priority Programme. Furthermore, also numerical and modeling work as well as a systematic transfer of questions from the applied sciences into mathematics will substantially contribute to the success of the programme.
Proposals must be written in English and submitted to the DFG by 24 April 2023. Please note that proposals can only be submitted via elan, the DFG’s electronic proposal processing system.
Applicants must have an active account in elan in order to submit a proposal to the DFG. If you have not yet registered in elan, please note that you must do so by 12 April 2023 to submit a proposal under this call; registration requests received after this time cannot be considered. You will normally receive confirmation of your registration by the next working day. Note that you will be asked to select the appropriate Priority Programme call during both the registration and, later, the submission process.
If you would like to submit a proposal for a new project within the existing Priority Programme, please go to Proposal Submission – New Project – Priority Programmes. Then start the submission and select “SPP 2265” from the list of current calls. Previous applicants can submit a proposal for the renewal of an existing project under Proposal Submission – Proposal Overview/Renewal Proposal.
In preparing your proposal, please review the programme guidelines (form 50.05, section B) and follow the proposal preparation instructions (form 54.01) in their currently valid version. These forms can either be downloaded from our website or accessed through the elan portal. Note, in particular, the changes which were announced in “Information for Researchers No. 61” on 1 September 2022, notably with respect to the compulsory use of the DFG’s template for CVs. As usual, the documents to be uploaded as pdf files can be prepared using LaTeX, provided the document’s structure is retained.
The review colloquium for the Priority Programme will be held on 29 August 2023 at DLR in Cologne.
Further Information
More information on the Priority Programme is available under:
The elan system can be accessed at:
DFG forms 50.05 and 54.01 can be downloaded at:
For scientific enquiries please contact the Priority Programme coordinator:
- Professor Dr. Wolfgang König
Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik (WIAS)
Leibniz-Institut im Forschungsverbund Berlin e. V.
Mohrenstraße 39
10117 Berlin
phone +49 30 20372-547
koenig@wias-berlin.d
Questions on the DFG proposal process can be directed to:
Programme contact:
- Dr. Carsten Balleier
phone +49 228 885-2063
carsten.balleier@dfg.d
Administrative contact:
- Silke Seiler
phone +49 228 885-2751
silke.seiler@dfg.d