Purpose of Funding

In the “Major Research Instrumentation” funding programme (according to Art. 91b of the Basic Law) the DFG is contributing 50% of the investment costs for major research instrumentation at universities of all kinds (Hochschulen) from a dedicated federal budget as defined in the federal-state agreement on research buildings and major research instrumentation at universities, and national high-performance computing (AV-FGH), decided by the Joint Science Conference (GWK).

Successful proposals must be of particular scientific quality and have more than regional significance. The instrumentation must be intended for use predominantly in research, meaning the need for its procurement and use must be justified solely by research. The instrumentation is also permitted to be used in teaching and/or clinical care, but only to a small degree. These areas will not be considered in the assessment and do not contribute to the justification.

Eligibility Criteria and Submission Procedure

1. Proposals may be submitted by public universities and non-public universities with institutional accreditation.
2. The gross acquisition cost must be at least €100,000 for universities of applied sciences and at least €200,000 for all other universities.
3. Provision of 50% co-financing by the federal state or university is required.
4. Major research instrumentation proposals with costs below €7.500.000 may be submitted at any time. They will be submitted to the DFG in accordance with the relevant state legislation. Please note that different regulations apply for instrumentation with costs of €7.500.000 or more (both DFG and Wissenschaftsrat head offices can provide more information on request).
5. The university appoints a person to be responsible for the proposal. This person prepares the proposal and submits it electronically via the elan portal. Upon submission he or she receives an automatically generated so-called “Quittungsdokument”, the legal submission document, which may not be altered or amended in any way. This document must be signed by the responsible person (signature 1), a person autorized to sign on behalf on the university as institution (signature 2) and, finally, a person autorized to confirm the financing of the first 50% of the investment costs from state budget (signature 3). The fully signed paper document must be sent as original to the DFG.

Type and Extent of Funding

Major instrumentation is the sum of the components, including accessories, that form a functional state for the intented operational application. An appropriate relationship should exist between the base unit (including software) and its accessories, which can include methodological and measurement-related expansions or supplements that are not directly required for operation.

• Forms and Guidelines
• Additional technology-specific information