AHRC is running this funding opportunity in collaboration with DFG.
We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system. Only the lead UK research organisation can submit an application.
The UK Project Lead (PL) is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but all team members and project partners are expected to contribute to the application.
Only the UK project lead needs to register with the Funding Service directly. Project co-leads (both domestic and international) will receive an email notification when the project lead has entered their details into the system. This email will guide individuals to create an account on the Funding Service by verifying their details. This will allow them to view and read the application.
Please note that for administrative purposes, all named researchers from the German team must be listed as ‘project co-lead (international)’.
To apply
Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
- Confirm you are the project lead.
- Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email support@funding-service.ukri.org
Please allow at least 10 working days for your organisation to be added to the Funding Service. We strongly suggest that if you are asking UKRI to add your organisation to the Funding Service to enable you to apply to this funding opportunity, that you also create an organisation Administration Account. This will be needed to allow the acceptance and management of any grant that might be offered to you.
- Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.
- Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.
- Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
- Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
- Save a PDF copy of your application and share this file with the German project lead, who then needs to submit this to DFG via ‘elan’ (instructions below).
Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.
When including images, you must:
- provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit)
- insert each new image on a new line
- use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words. The following are not permitted, and your application may be rejected if you include:
- sentences or paragraphs of text
- tables
- excessive quantities of images
A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.
For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:
References
References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.
Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:
- references are easily identifiable by the assessors
- references are formatted as appropriate to your research
- persistent identifiers are used where possible
General use of hyperlinks
Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.
Deadline
AHRC must receive your application by 11 February 2026 4:00pm UK time.
The UK project lead must provide a PDF copy of the Funding Service submission to the German project lead. Once the application has been submitted:
- Go to the ‘read application’ tab.
- Click ‘print this page’.
- Save the file as a PDF.
- Send this PDF and any other attachments (including project partner letters and Head of Department letters where applicable) to the German project lead.
- The German project lead then needs to upload this PDF to the DFG’s submission portal ‘elan’ by 11:59pm German time on 11 February 2026.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Following the submission of your application to the funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and applications will not be returned for amendment. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.
Processing personal data
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to share the application and any personal information that it contains with DFG so that they can participate in the assessment process. For more information on how DFG uses personal information, read the DFG Privacy Policy.
Sensitive information
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email international@ahrc.ukri.org
Include in the subject line: [AHRC-DFG; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].
Typical examples of confidential information include:
- individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
- declaration of interest
- additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
- conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
- the application is an invited resubmission
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.
Publication of outcomes
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity via UKRI’s news page in November 2026. DFG will publish the outcomes for this funding opportunity on their page for the AHRC-DFG funding initiative. You can also find the outcomes from previous rounds on this page.
If your application is successful, AHRC will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research. DFG will publish information about funded projects on GEPRIS.
Summary
Word limit: 550
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We usually make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, therefore do not include any confidential or sensitive information. Make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
- opinion-formers
- policymakers
- the public
- the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
- context
- the challenge the project addresses
- aims and objectives
- potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
- project lead (PL)
- project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
- project co-lead (international) (PcL (I))
- specialist
- grant manager
- professional enabling staff
- research and innovation associate
- technician
Only list one individual as project lead. This must be the UK project lead for the purpose of submission.
Please note that for administrative purposes, all applicants and co-applicants (Antragstellende und Mitverantwortliche) from the German team must be listed as ‘project co-lead (international)’ in this section. This will not determine the status of researchers within the German team, which must still have a project lead and can optionally include additional team members.
UKRI has introduced a new addition to the ‘Specialist’ role type. Public contributors such as people with lived experience can now be added to an application.
Find out more about UKRI’s core team roles in funding applications.
Application questions
Vision
Word limit: 1,000
What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how your proposed work:
- is innovative
- is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the field(s) or area(s)
- has the potential to advance current understanding, or generate new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
- is timely given current trends, context, and needs
- impacts world-leading research, society, the economy, or the environment
- advances UK-German academic research collaboration and international collaboration
Within the Vision section we also expect you to:
- give a concise description of your project’s research objectives
- explain briefly and precisely the research context or state of the art in your field as it relates to your project
- make clear in which context you situate your own research and in what areas you intend to make a unique and innovative contribution
References may be included within this section.
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
Approach
Word limit: 4,000
How are you going to deliver your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:
- is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
- is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
- has an integrated approach, maximising the added value of UK-German research collaboration
- has appropriate management arrangements of the project.
- describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the place and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work
Within the Approach section we also expect you to:
- describe in detail the proposed cooperation between the partners involved and the expected added value of this international working
- outline the steps which you have taken to ensure that your project team and research are informed, as appropriate, by equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations
- demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the proposal, including any assistance needed from outside your own group or institute
- provide a detailed and comprehensive project plan including milestones and timelines in the form of a Gantt chart or similar
- if proposing cross-disciplinary, practice-led research or both, evidence how your work fulfils the funding opportunity’s eligibility criteria
References may be included within this section.
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
Applicant and team capability to deliver
Word limit: 1,650
Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:
- the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work
- the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
- the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
- contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
The word limit for this section is 1,650 words: 1,150 words to be used for R4RI modules (including references) and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions.
Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you and, if relevant, your team (project and project co-leads, researchers, technicians, specialists, partners and so on) have and how this will help deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.
Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed. Use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings:
- contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge
- the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships
- contributions to the wider research and innovation community
- contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit
Additions
Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is optional and can be up to 1,000 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences, or outputs, but you can use it to describe any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them).
Complete this as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV.
References may be included within this section.
Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)
Word limit: 500
What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:
- the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations
- the relevant legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing data
- how you will manage these considerations
This set of criteria plays a role in the assessment and can be the deciding factor between otherwise equally strong projects.
Research data are defined for the purpose of this section as information relevant to, or of interest to researchers, either as inputs into or outputs from research. They are research materials resulting from primary data collection or generation, or derived from existing sources intended to be analysed in the course of a research project. As such, all projects are expected to outline:
- the types of data which will be used and/or generated
- proposed methodology for data management
- how the data will be stored in the short term
- how the data will be stored in the long term
- how the data will be shared
- any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategies taken to not preclude further re-use of data
- existing standards and data repositories or archives in your disciplines and in UK or German national and international contexts where appropriate
- formal information standards (within the UK, Germany, and further afield where relevant) with which study will be compliant
Please note that, where relevant, German applicants may need to include an ethics committee vote from the institution within which their research will be carried out. For more information about the conditions under which an ethics committee vote is necessary, please refer to DFG, German Research Foundation frequently asked questions: Humanities and Social Sciences.
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the Funding Service.
Resources and cost justification
Word limit: 1,000
What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Use the resources and cost summary table to enter the full UK costs only. The German project costs should be outlined and supported in the separate DFG budget document and justification of resources. This can be downloaded from the Additional information section of this funding opportunity and must be submitted through the ‘DFG budget and justification of resources’ section of the application.
Justify the application’s more costly UK resources, in particular:
- all project staff (including non-Germany based project co-lead/s (international) where applicable)
- significant travel for field work or collaboration (but not regular travel between collaborating organisations or to conferences)
- any consumables beyond typical requirements, or that are required in exceptional quantities
- all facilities and infrastructure costs
- all resources that have been costed as ‘Exceptions’
- any costs related to consultancy, sub-contracting and facilitation of project partner participation
Projects should be integrated but do not have to be financially symmetrical. However, work packages must be delivered reasonably equally.
In this section:
- outline your justifications by breaking resources down into the summary fund headings: directly incurred, directly allocated and exceptions
- do not justify estates and indirect costs
- AHRC cannot support the funding of individual items of equipment costing more than £10,000 (including VAT).
- List £0 costs against German research team members. These costs should be included in your separate DFG budget, with their correct time contribution
You can request costs associated with reasonable adjustments where they increase as a direct result of working on the project. For further information see Disability and accessibility support for UKRI applicants and grant holders.
Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want you to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:
- are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
- represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
- maximise potential outcomes and impacts
Discipline classification: primary
Word count: 5
Please provide the primary research area of your proposal.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
You must select from one of these research disciplines.
This information will be used for the purposes of processing your proposal and in the selection of appropriate assessors.
- archaeology
- area studies
- classics
- cultural and museum studies
- dance
- design
- development studies
- drama and theatre studies
- education
- history
- human geography
- information and communication technologies
- languages and literature
- law and legal studies
- library and information studies
- linguistics
- media
- music
- philosophy
- political science and international studies
- social anthropology
- theology, divinity, and religion
- visual arts
Discipline classification: secondary
Word count: 50
Please describe, using keywords, the research area of your proposal and where relevant the approach, time period or geographical area. This will further help with the selection of appropriate assessors.
DFG budget and justification of resources
Word count: 2,000
Outline the budget and financial justifications for the German component of your proposed project.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Complete the DFG budget and justification of resources document (available from the Additional information section) and paste it into the Funding Service application.
Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want you to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:
- are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
- represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
- maximise potential outcomes and impacts
Using the DFG budget template, you should:
- explain why the indicated resources are needed, taking account of the nature and complexity of the research proposed (note that it is not sufficient merely to list what is required)
- not list indirect costs, the lump sum (Programmpauschale) will be added automatically to each funded project by DFG
- not request the module ‘Mercator fellow’ for a UK partner
- justify each item for each applicant
Carefully check the guidelines for the different modules. Some of them, for example the ‘replacement module’ or the ‘temporary position for principal investigators’, require additional documents.
You may delete positions from the template that are not applicable to your application.
Follow the outline given in the relevant guidelines (Leitfäden) for the requested modules on DFG’s Research Grants Programme (Sachbeihilfe).
Note that there are both general guidelines (50.01) as well as specific guidelines for each individual module (52.01 to 52.07). Please make sure to submit all necessary documents for the requested modules.
See also the information on personnel rates (60.12) as well as the information on the payment of doctoral students (55.02).
Once you have completed this template, please copy and paste all of the content into this textbox.
Eligibility: resubmission and multiple submissions
Word count: 500
Have you reworked your proposal from a previous submission, or submitted it to multiple funding opportunities?
If your application is not a resubmission or has not been submitted to any other funding opportunities enter ‘N/A’ into the Funding Service.
AHRC and DFG will use this information to determine if the application is eligible for the opportunity. It will not form part of the assessment criteria.
What AHRC and DFG are looking for in your response
- clear evidence that this application has been significantly developed since its previous submission, for example through changes to research questions, methodology and/or the project team (where applicable)
- clear evidence that this proposal is not ineligible in relation to each national agency’s rules regarding submission of a project to more than one funder or scheme
You only need to complete this section if you:
- are submitting a reworked submission from the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth round of the AHRC-DFG funding opportunity
- have submitted this application to any other funding opportunity or funding stream of any other funding agency
If your application is a resubmission, please state which year your original application was made and include the original grant application reference.
If this application has been submitted to any other funding opportunity or funding stream of any other funding agency, state this here.
Project partners
Add details about any project partners’ contributions. If there are no project partners, you can indicate this on the Funding Service.
A project partner is a collaborating organisation who will have an integral role in the proposed research. This may include direct contributions for example cash, donated equipment and resources, or staff seconded to the project, or indirect and in-kind contributions for example use of project partner’s equipment, datasets, or facilities. Project partners may be in industry, academia, third sector or government organisations in the UK or overseas, including partners based in the EU.
Add the following project partner details:
- the organisation name and address (searchable via a drop-down list or enter the organisation’s details manually, as applicable)
- the project partner contact name and email address
- the type of contribution (direct or indirect) and its monetary value
If a detail is entered incorrectly and you have saved the entry, remove the specific project partner record and re-add it with the correct information.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Project partners: letters (or emails) of support
Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the project partners section. These should be uploaded in English or Welsh only.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box, or if you do not have any project partners enter ‘N/A’. Each letter or email you provide should:
- confirm the partner’s commitment to the project
- clearly explain the value, relevance, and possible benefits of the work to them
- describe any additional value that they bring to the project
- have a page limit of 2 sides of A4 per partner
For the file name, use the unique Funding Service number the system gives you when you create an application, followed by the words ‘Project partner’.
The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply.
If you do not have any project partners, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service.
Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that, if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the project partners’ section.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
International collaboration
Word limit: 100
Does the proposed work involve any international collaboration or engagement?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Provide details about your expected international collaboration or engagement, including:
- a list of the countries your international project co-leads, project partners, visiting researchers, or other collaborators are based in
- details of any subcontractors or service providers
If your proposed work does not involve international collaboration or engagement, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service.
