National Funding for International Collaborations

DFG funding for international research

DFG supports the collaboration with international partners through international modules which can be requested for most DFG-funded projects. In transnational collaborative research projects, German partners usually apply for funding at DFG whereas the international partners receive funding from their national agencies.

Transnational calls

German funding agencies cooperate with their international counterparts to publish coordinated calls for proposals which are often co-financed by the European Union.

With the so-called  „ERA-NET“, the EU funds cooperations among national and regional program owners (e.g. ministries)  and funding agencies. As a result, these agencies publish coordinated calls. This means that you submit a coordinated proposal, but the German agencies will administrate your part of the grant. When setting up a consortium, make sure all your partners’ regions actually participate in the ERA-NET, call or topic in question. Germany currently participates in the following ERA-NET:

  • E-Rare ERA-NET on rare diseases
  • ERA-CVD Cardiovascular disease
  • ANIHWA Animal health and welfare
  • EDCTP European and developing countries clinical trials partnership
  • ERA-NET NEURON II Network of European funding for neuroscience research
  • EURONANOMED II European network for transnational collaborative RTD projects in the field of nanomedicine
  • Infect-ERA Coordination of European funding for infectious diseases research
  • ERAcoSysMed Collaboration on systems medicine funding to promote the implementation of systems biology approaches in clinical research and medical practice

Some ERA-NET have a regional rather than a thematic focus:

  • ERA-NET LAC Network of the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean Countries on joint innovation and research activities
  • ERANET-RUS Strengthening STI links between Russia and the European research area

Overview of ERA-NET and open calls

Joint Programming is an instrument for the implementation of the European Research Area (ERA). Through voluntary transnational cooperation and pooling of resources, synergies between existing funding programs can be exploited and new joint programs are established to tackle European and international challenges.

Article 185 of the Lisbon-Treaty (former article 169) provides the legal basis for the participation of the Union in research and development programs of Member States.

The following JPI and Art. 185 actions are especially interesting for health research: