The Trans-Atlantic Platform (TAP) is pleased to announce its fifth international funding call

In a time of profound global uncertainty – shaped by climate change, pandemics, geopolitical tensions, economic disruption, technological transformation and epistemic challenges – the call will support innovative, transnational social sciences and humanities (SSH) research that strengthens society’s capacity to anticipate, understand and respond to future challenges and opportunities.

Aim of the Call

The Preparing for Tomorrow call will fund collaborative research that advances conceptual, empirical and normative understanding of how societies envision, prepare for and respond to uncertain futures. It seeks to generate knowledge that supports resilient, inclusive and forward-looking strategies, and that informs policy and practice at local, national and international levels.

Scope and Focus

Proposals are invited from transnational research teams to address one or more of the following overarching themes:

• Uncertainty: sources, costs, communication and improvement
• The many faces of the future and crisis: historical, cultural and regional perspectives
• Scope and coordination of response strategies
• Normative inquiry into prevention and preparation for future crises

Research may draw on a wide range of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, theoretical, methodological and applied approaches within SSH, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, historical and future-oriented methodologies.

Key Features

The call will:

• Support international and interdisciplinary collaboration across countries on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.
• Encourage engagement with policymakers, communities and other stakeholders.
• Promote diversity within research teams, including the involvement and development of early career researchers.
• Address both risks and opportunities arising from societal, political, technological and environmental change.

Please submit a compulsive letter of intent to the DFG as call secretariat by 8 July 2026 and the proposal by 28 October 2026. Letters of intent and proposals are to be submitted solely via the elan portal(externer Link) in order to ensure proposal-related data is recorded and documents are securely transmitted.

When preparing your proposal, please refer to the template/guideline etc. that can be found on the call website(externer Link). 

If this is the first time you are submitting a proposal to the DFG, please note that you must register in the elan portal before you can submit your proposal. Lead PIs must do so by 1 July 2026, national PIs by 21 October 2026. You will normally receive confirmation of your registration by the next working day.

Equity and Diversity

The DFG strongly welcomes proposals from researchers of all genders and sexual identities, from different ethnic, cultural, religious, ideological or social backgrounds, from different career stages, types of universities and research institutions, and with disabilities or chronic illness. 

Good Research Practice

According to a resolution of the DFG General Assembly, DFG funding may only be awarded to research institutions that have implemented the guidelines laid down in the Code of Conduct for Safeguarding Good Research Practice(externer Link) in their own regulations. The management of your institution is responsible for implementing the guidelines in a legally binding manner. In order to avoid delays in the disbursement of funding, please verify implementation within your institution in good time. For information regarding the implementation, please refer to the Research Integrity Portal(externer Link). If you have any questions on this subject, please contact the Research Integrity team(externer Link) at the DFG Head Office. 

Further Information

Please find detailed information on the call, FAQs and national addenda here(externer Link).

When submitting proposals, please use the elan portal(externer Link) and refer to the guidelines for the call as well as the respective national addenda(externer Link). The FAQ on Proposal Submission(interner Link) may be helpful for DFG applicants.

Contact Persons at the DFG Head Office

E-mail: t-ap@dfg.de(externer Link)

Sigrid Claßen, Humanities and Social Sciences, +49 228 885-2209

Anna Knaps, Social and Behavioural Sciences, +49 228 885-3031

Niklas Hebing, Humanities and Cultural Studies, +49 228 885-2949

Privacy Policy

We, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), take the protection of your personal data and its confidential treatment extremely seriously. Therefore, please refer to the DFG’s Privacy Policy(interner Link). If you intend to transmit personal data of third parties, please make sure to do so only if the necessary legitimation under data protection law exist. Before transmitting data of third parties to the DFG, please forward the DFG’s Data Protection Notice to the individuals affected (data subjects). If there is a legitimate interest not to inform individuals beforehand (e.g. for reasons of secrecy or in case of a nomination or candidate proposal), these individuals should be informed no later than at the time of publication.