Applicant guidelines

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General information on applying for the Leibniz Competition

1. Eligibility and funding capacity

The programme documents for the four Leibniz Competition funding programmes can be accessed via the Leibniz Competition website. All Leibniz institutes can use their application budget to submit applications in accordance with the following guidelines.

Each institute has an annual application budget of EUR 1 millionⁱ in the Leibniz Competition. It can submit up to two applications as lead institute and participate in further applications as a co-operation partner. The maximum funding amount per application is EUR 1 million[1], the minimum funding amount per application is EUR 250k. Lead institutes may choose – in accordance with the collaborating Leibniz institutes – to finance funds transfers over EUR 200,000 to cooperating Leibniz Institutes from their own application budget or opt for the transfers to be charged to the cooperation partner’s application budget. The maximum funding limit of EUR 1 million per application still stands.²

Each institute can also make an additional application twice a year for the Leibniz Programme for Women Professors. This programme can usually support up to five projects per year. The Senate Competition Committee (SAW) selects in its summer session in May up to three projects in the Leibniz Programme for Women Professors for funding recommendations to the senate.

An annual sum of approx. EUR 24 million is available to fund projects as part of the Leibniz Competition.

ⁱ As part of a pilot project to bundle transfer activities of several institutes, the maximum funding amount in the programme Leibniz Transfer will be increased to 3 million € per application for the Leibniz Competition 2027. The requested amount must be covered by the institutes' application budgets; the application budget per institute of 1 million € remains unchanged.

² Except in the Leibniz Transfer programme, see footnote 1.

2. How the procedure is implemented

The procedure for applying, for assessing applications and for deciding which projects to fund encompasses the following stages:

Drawing up and submitting an expression of interest (see Appendix 1 for documents to be submitted)
Drawing up and submitting a completed application (see Appendix 2 for documents to be submitted)
Leibniz Headquarters assesses whether the applications are complete and meet the formal criteria.
Leibniz Headquarters procures two written, academic reviews by external, internationally accredited academic experts.