Guide · 9 min read

DFG Individual Research Grants (Sachbeihilfe): Application Guide for 2026

The DFG Sachbeihilfe (Individual Research Grants) is the most flexible bottom-up funding line in Germany, open year-round to researchers in any discipline at any career stage. Around 35% of applications are funded — high compared to ERC, but the methodology bar is high. This guide walks the application end to end.

1. What Sachbeihilfe funds

Sachbeihilfe (literally “material aid”) covers everything you need to run a research project:

• PhD and postdoc salaries (up to 3 years extendable)
• Technical staff
• Equipment up to €50,000 per item (above that, the Major Instrumentation programme applies)
• Consumables, travel, publications, conferences
• Workshops, summer schools, knowledge transfer

There is no formal budget cap. Most successful proposals run €200k–€600k over 3 years. Larger budgets are possible for specific topics (clinical research networks, infrastructure) but invite tougher review.

2. Eligibility

The PI must hold a PhD (or equivalent) and be affiliated with a German higher-education institution or non-university research organisation (Max Planck, Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Leibniz). Foreign PIs can apply if they relocate to Germany for the project — the DFG specifically welcomes international researchers and provides relocation support.

Career-stage rules:

• Postdocs without a permanent position: eligible, the DFG also offers temporary employment via the grant.
• Junior PIs (first 6 years post-PhD): eligible with same criteria.
• Senior PIs: eligible.
• No habilitation required.

3. Submission cadence

Sachbeihilfe is rolling — you submit when the proposal is ready. Decision takes 6–9 months. Funding starts 2–4 months after approval. Reapplication after rejection is allowed at any time, but a substantial revision is expected.

4. The proposal

The proposal is submitted through elan.dfg.de. Length is 20–25 pages (depending on subject area: humanities up to 25, life sciences typically 20). Structure:

• State of the art and own preliminary work (3–5 pages) — current understanding of the field, your contributions, why you’re positioned to advance it.
• Project description (12–15 pages) — objectives, hypotheses, work programme (organised by hypothesis or work package), preliminary results, risks and alternatives, ethics and data.
• Other (1–2 pages) — cooperation, supplementary information, gender plan if applicable.

Plus appendices: short CVs of all team members (max 2 pages each), letter of intent from the host institution (rarely required for university-based PIs), and ethics or data-management documents.

5. The evaluation

DFG uses a two-step evaluation:

• Written reviews from 2–4 reviewers, scored A (excellent) to D (insufficient) on scientific merit, feasibility, applicant track record, infrastructure.
• Review board (Fachkollegium) meeting where reviews are discussed and a recommendation is made to the DFG’s Joint Committee.

The cut-line is approximately two A scores. Proposals with one A and a B can be funded if the project pool is small that round; proposals with B/C/B/C are usually declined.

6. Why DFG proposals get declined

• Methodology described as a list of techniques rather than as an argument for how each technique answers a specific hypothesis.
• No preliminary results supporting the central hypothesis. DFG is bottom-up but expects the hypothesis to be already credible at the start.
• Risks and alternatives section that’s a copy of the aims (“risk: aim 1 fails; mitigation: revise approach”). Real risks are technical (a model species is hard to source, a method has high inter-user variability) and the mitigations are concrete.
• Track record imbalance — the PI lists 30 publications but two of them belong to the project area. DFG reviewers care about depth, not breadth.
• Budget unjustified — equipment and personnel without explicit linkage to the work packages.

7. Tips

• State the hypothesis in one sentence. If the abstract needs three paragraphs, reviewers will struggle.
• Use the “own preliminary work” section like a CV. 1–2 sentences per relevant paper, explaining specifically why it positions you for this project.
• Include figures sparingly — methodology figures earn page space, decorative figures waste it.
• Get a senior colleague who has been a Fachkollegium reviewer to read the draft. Their instincts are calibrated to what DFG actually rejects.

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