DFG Individual Research Grants (Sachbeihilfe)

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG)

The central bottom-up instrument of German research funding and the one most social work academics in Germany will use. Any qualified researcher at a German institution can propose a project with a clearly defined topic and duration, in any discipline, with no submission deadline at all — proposals go in when they are ready, via the elan portal. A distinctive sub-track matters for the field: 'long-term projects' in the humanities and social sciences carry continuous funding for seven to twelve years, which is what makes cohort studies, longitudinal welfare research and large corpora feasible.

Indicative award

Amount not published (varies by call)No maximum grant figure is published on the programme page; budgets are built from the project's actual needs and set out in the programme guidelines. No figure is asserted here.

Timing

Rolling / openNo specific published date recorded. This funder publishes a cycle rather than a date, and this database does not invent one.No submission deadline — a first proposal may be submitted at any time. Funding duration follows project need, as a rule several years; the humanities and social sciences long-term project track runs 7 to 12 years.

Who can apply

Postdoctoral, Early-career faculty, Mid-career & senior, Any faculty rank

Eligibility

Open to qualified researchers who as a rule hold a doctorate and work at a German research institution — universities and non-university institutes. Researchers at purely commercial institutions are excluded, as is anyone unable to publish their findings openly. Nationality is not a gate; institutional affiliation in Germany is. Renewal proposals must arrive at least six months before existing funds run out.

SSWR clusters

Topics

investigator-initiated research · longitudinal research · all disciplines

Apply at

https://www.dfg.de/en/research-funding/funding-opportunities/programmes/individual/research-grants

This entry

Curated by the working group. Written 2026-08-07. The funder link has not yet been machine-checked.

Amounts and dates on this page are indicative and are maintained by people rather than scraped. Funders change ceilings, windows and eligibility without notice; confirm all details at the source above before applying.

← Back to the database

DFG Individual Research Grants (Sachbeihilfe)

Also on the Research Design and Measurement shelf