The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) are launching the sixth call for proposals for outstanding joint UK-German research projects in the Humanities.

Both funding agencies want to strengthen international cooperation in the fields of Arts and Humanities to fund academic research of the highest quality within their own countries, and are aware that some of the best research can only be achieved by working with the best researchers internationally. The scheme will provide funding for integrated UK-German projects. The partner agencies will organise a coordinated peer review and a single joint selection process. Funding will be distributed among the research partners according to scholars’ place of work and, more generally, according to the funding rules of each individual agency.

Proposals may be submitted in any area of the Humanities, as defined in the research funding guides. Only proposals whose primary aim is to make fundamental advances in human knowledge in the relevant fields may be submitted in response to the call for proposals. Applicants who are uncertain whether their proposal would be eligible should contact the relevant agencies for clarification.

Projects must have well-defined joint working programmes that are clearly demonstrating the added value of UK-German collaboration. We expect that each partner substantially contributes to the common project; this also includes taking on organisational responsibilities.

Immediate resubmission of unsuccessful proposals from one call to the next call is not permitted but is acceptable for future calls. Applicants unsuccessful under the last call may submit different proposals for this call.

The duration of the projects will normally be – and must not exceed – three years. Successful projects will be expected to start in early 2025.

The UK component may seek up to £420,000 FEC to which the AHRC will normally contribute 80 % FEC. Projects should be integrated but do not have to be symmetrical in the sense that neither the sums nor the items requested have to be identical on the UK and German sides. However, we would expect the work packages to be delivered in reasonably equal shares.

The closing date for this call is Tuesday, 20 February 2024. Applications for this call will need to be submitted through the UKRI Funding Service (by 4 p.m. UK time) with parallel submission to the DFG’s elan portal (by 11:59 p.m. German time). German applicants should note that if they are using the elan system for the first time, they need to set up an elan account by 12 February 2024 at the latest. UK applicants do not need to be registered.

Please be aware that following the submission of your application to the Funding Service, the submitted documents cannot be changed and applications will not be returned for amendment. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.

More information and the complete call documents can be found on the AHRC website.

Information for Applicants Based in Germany

Once the UK project leader has submitted the joint proposal through the UKRI Funding Service, the downloaded PDF proposal documents should be submitted by the German project leader to elan by 20 February 2024, 11:59 p.m.

For the submission in elan follow these directions:

• Funding scheme: Proposal Submission/New Project/Individual Grants Programme/Proposal for a Research Grant (Antragstellung/Neues Projekt/Einzelförderung/Antrag auf eine Sachbeihilfe)
• Call to select: UK DFG/AHRC-Call 2024
• Acronym: please do not fill in an acronym, use it to state the ‘AH/X000000/I’ number from your proposal submission to the UKRI system (the funding agencies need this information to link the different submissions).
• Title and summary: you do not have to translate either from English into German, just copy and paste your English title and summary into the boxes that call for the information in German.
• Project leaders from the UK are to be added as ‘participating individuals’ in the role of ‘cooperation partner’.
• In addition to the downloaded pdf from the UKRI Funding Service, also upload the CV (or CVs) of the German team as an extra document (one PDF).
• DFG-specific documents (for example, a statement from the potential employer for temporary positions for principal investigator, or the statement by the university for the replacement module) need only be submitted to Elan, not to the UKRI system.

Download the DFG Budget and Justification form, which is to be submitted through the UKRI Funding Service.

Outcomes of Previous Calls

• Outcome of the first call (2018/19)
• Outcome of the second call (2019/20)
• Outcome of the third call (2020/21)
• Outcome of the fourth call (2021/22)
• Outcome of the fifth call (2022/2023)

Contact Information

Lead responsibility for the administration of calls rotates between the AHRC and the DFG. The AHRC is leading the administration of this sixth call and should therefore be the first point of contact for general enquiries relating to the call.

United Kingdom, AHRC:

• Emma Bessent
  International Partnerships and Engagement Manager
  enquiries@ahrc.ukri.org (Policy and process enquiries)
  international@ahrc.ukri.org (Programme enquiries)
  Please put DFG in the subject heading.
  We aim to respond within five working days.

Germany, DFG:

• Sigrid Claßen
  Humanities and Cultural Studies
  AHRC-Ausschreibung@dfg.de
  phone +49 (0)228 885-2209
• Dr. Nora Böttcher
  Humanities and Cultural Studies
  AHRC-Ausschreibung@dfg.de
  phone +49 (0)228 885-2693