The French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation) have agreed to continue publishing annual calls for French-German projects in the natural, life and engineering sciences (excluding space technology, nuclear research and defence). Responsibility for the administrative processing and the review process for proposals submitted under these calls alternates annually between ANR and the DFG.

Proposals in social sciences and humanities must be submitted in the dedicated ANR-DFG call for social sciences and humanities (with separate deadlines). This includes transdisciplinary projects when the proposed approach is mainly centred on social sciences and humanities, and/or when the principal investigator is from the social sciences/humanities.

Call ANR-DFG NLE 2025

The 2025 edition of the ANR-DFG collaboration in the Natural, Life and Engineering sciences (NLE) will take place with the ANR having the role of the ‘lead agency’, i.e., the ANR will be responsible for processing the proposals and conducting the review process. However, the full proposals need to be submitted to both the ANR and the DFG using their respective web interfaces.

The ANR had requested unilaterally a pre-registration before 15 October 2024.

Only if you have been invited by the ANR to submit a full proposal, you may proceed.

Once you have submitted your joint proposal to the ANR (before 27 March 2025, 5 p.m. CET), you may submit one copy of the same proposal (same pdf document, one submission per project) to the DFG through the DFG’s elan system.

The DFG needs to receive its copy at latest on 31 March 2025.

The documents of the full proposals (which have to be prepared and submitted according to the rules of the ANR) have to be submitted identically to the DFG. The proposals must clearly justify the financial request both to the ANR and to the DFG. Note that the overhead from the DFG (“Programmpauschale”) is always requested implicitly without further mention.

Please submit scientific CVs of all German and French applicants to the DFG. They do not need to be in any ANR- or DFG-specific form.

Additionally, you will need to fill in and upload a project data form.

Concerning the ANR requirements, all relevant information can be found at the ANR website (notably, read the “Annexe PRCI – franco - allemands – DFG”).

Be aware that from the viewpoint of the DFG, proposals within this call are a special case of the DFG’s Research Grants programme (Sachbeihilfe). The German applicants of a French-German project need to comply with the DFG’s eligibility rules.

In particular, for proposals from non-university research institutions in Germany the duty to cooperate “Kooperationspflicht” needs to be fulfilled (if applicable to the specific institution). Please note the “Kooperationspflicht” cannot be fulfilled with the international cooperation partner.

Please check yourself whether you need to submit further documents according to the DFG’s general regulations (e.g., employer statements for temporary PI positions, ethics votes, etc.).

A submission to the DFG is only possible if all German applicants of a French-German project have a valid account with up-to-date contact information on elan. If not, please request/update your account as early as possible – at latest on 23 March 2025. The French partners may request an account, too, in order to provide themselves their correct contact information to the DFG. However, the latter is not compulsory.

If within a project, there are two ore more applicants on the German side, it must only be submitted to the DFG once by one German applicant. This applicant needs to enter all information with respect to all applicants on the German side.

Please submit your proposal within elan under Proposal Submission – New Project as a “Proposal for a Research Grant” in the Individual Grants Programme, and select the call “Frankreich-ANR-DFG 2025 NLE” during the submission process.

Solely the funds requested from the DFG need to be entered in the elan web forms (for every German applicant), for a project duration of either 24, 30, or 36 months. As usual, the overhead funds (“Programmpauschale”) do not need to be requested explicitly. If applicable, they will be granted automatically.

The corresponding French applicants (and only them) need to be entered as “cooperation partners” in the elan web forms.

The final decision after reviewing and selection by ANR, and confirmation by the DFG, can be expected to be available in October 2025, with a start of funding at the beginning of 2026. Funding will be awarded to the selected projects according to the general financial regulations of the ANR and DFG, respectively.

Call ANR-DFG NLE 2024

The results of the 2024 edition of this call are now available.

Contact for general questions about ANR-DFG NLE

• Dr. Carsten Balleier, 0228-885 2063, Anr-nle@dfg.de
• Maria Borre, 0228-885 2715, Anr-nle@dfg.de
• Christina López Castillo, 0228-885 2295, Anr-nle@dfg.de

Contacts for questions specific to your research discipline

Here you can find the Programme Contacts at the DFG Head Office.

Contact for questions concerning the submission to the ANR

• the administrative and financial arrangements: aapg.adfi@anr.fr
• the scientific aspects of the project proposal: aapg.science@anr.fr
• difficulties encountered when entering data or during document submission on the website: aapg.si@anr.fr

Please note the DFG’s data protection notice on research funding which can be viewed and downloaded.

If necessary, please also forward this information to those persons whose data the DFG processes because they are involved in your project.