FAQ: Submission of Proposals within the Weave Lead Agency Procedure
General information about the Weave Lead Agency Procedure can be found here:
The Weave Procedure applies to projects that are funded within the Individual Research Programme. Further funding options (e.g. Clinical Trials or Research Units) are currently not covered.
For the D-A-CH region, joint proposals within the DFG’s coordinated programmes (e.g. Research Units or Priority Programmes) can be submitted within the D-A-CH Lead Agency Procedure.
Further information on the D-A-CH Lead Agency Procedure can be found here:
The participating funding organisations can be found here:
In the proposal document, apart from the applicants located in Germany, the applicants outside of Germany that apply for funding at the relevant partner funding agency should be listed as applicants.
In the elan portal, all persons located in Germany and applying for funds at DFG should be registered as “applicants”. The project partners outside of Germany should be registered as “cooperation partners”. Further participating persons from abroad who do not apply for funding but contribute significantly to the project can also be registered as cooperation partners in the elan portal.
NCN special regulation:
For proposals in cooperation with Poland (NCN), Postdocs and PhD students must not be named in the proposal. More information can be found here:
When the DFG acts as Lead Agency, the number of applicants may be defined as desired. However, proposals within the Weave Lead Agency Procedure are Individual Research Grants in which the project parts should be equally weighted. Within the programme of Individual Research Grants, there usually are not more than four applicants (on the German side).
NCN special regulation:
It should be noted that for proposals in cooperation with Poland (NCN) with the DFG as Partner Agency, only one German applicant may be involved in the project. This rule does not apply if the DFG has been selected as Lead Agency.
The Lead Agency can be selected as desired.
The proposal documents are always submitted according to the specifications of the Lead Agency; however, additional documents may be requested by the Partner Agencies on a project-specific basis. After submitting the proposal to the Lead Agency, a copy of the proposal documents must be submitted to the Partner Agency by the cooperation partner(s) within 7 days.
DFG as Lead Agency:
Only one applicant located in Germany uploads the proposal to the elan portal. The German applicants are "applicants" and the applicants outside of Germany are "cooperation partners".
DFG as Partner Agency:
Please contact the selected Lead Agency for information on the requirements for proposal submission. In addition, please upload the document "Project Data Form" in the elan portal. Should the CV already be attached to the proposal documents within the same file, you can upload the Project Data Form instead of the CV.
No. Only the German applicants need to be registered on elan, as they are formally applicants at the DFG.
Yes, the duty to cooperate applies. It cannot be fulfilled through the international cooperation. More information can be found here:
DFG as Lead Agency
Proposals with the DFG as Lead Agency can be submitted at any time. Due to the requirements of some Partner Agencies, there may be deadlines for proposal submission if your proposal is to be decided in the current year and started in the following year. Please contact the DFG-Head Office for more information.
DFG as Partner Agency
Some funding agencies have proposal deadlines that must be considered accordingly. Please contact the relevant funding agency for further information.
After submitting the proposal to the Lead Agency, a copy of the proposal documents must be submitted to the Partner Agency by the cooperation partner(s) within 7 days.
All modules can be applied for within the Individual Research Grant Programme. Further information can be found here:
An overhead for the German part of the project is automatically added to the funds in the case of a grant at the DFG, thus it does not need to be applied for. The rules for the project part outside Germany vary depending on the Partner Agency - please contact the relevant funding agency directly to find out whether overheads have to be applied for. If overheads have to be applied for, they must also be listed in the proposal document if the DFG is the Lead Agency.
The DFG overhead does not have to be indicated in a proposal for which the DFG acts as the Partner Agency.
The budget must be presented and justified separately for the individual project parts. This means that the funds requested from the Partner Agencies by the cooperation partners must also be listed and justified in the proposal document under point 5. However, please only enter the funds requested from the DFG into the elan portal.
No, the DFG does not have any formal limits on the amount of funding requested, and the amount of funding requested from the DFG does not have to match the amount requested from the Partner Agency by the cooperation partners. However, it should be an integrated project with equally weighted project parts. Please contact the responsible contact person at the respective Partner Agency for information on the formal requirements for the funds.
If you have already applied for or started a project with your own position, please contact the DFG Head Office before submitting a proposal for a new project. A proposal may be possible in exceptional cases. Further information on the Temporary Position for Principal Investigators can be found here:
The Lead Agency organises the review process and forwards the results of the review and a recommendation for a decision to the Partner Agency. On this basis, the respective committees of all funding organisations involved in the respective proposal make a decision. On the DFG side, this decision is made by the Joint Committee. A project proposal can only be funded if all participating funding agencies agree to approve it; otherwise, all parts of the proposal must be rejected. As a rule, however, the Partner Agencies follow the Lead Agency's recommendation.
On average, it takes 9 months from proposal submission to a final decision.
If an ethics vote is required for the German or foreign part of the project, it must be submitted with the application. However, an ethics vote by the local German ethics committee can, as an exceptional case, be submitted no later than three months upon proposal submission. Otherwise, the funding organisations may stop processing the application.
Please note that the submission of an ethics vote is also necessary if only the project part abroad is affected, as it is a cooperation project.
In elan, there is a limit of 300 characters for the project title and a limit of 3,000 characters for the abstract. The title and abstract should be written in such a way that they can be used equally for all participating funding organisations.
If you have any questions regarding the application process, please direct them to weave@dfg.d.