DFG cooperation
The Establishment of New Cooperation between the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) and German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG)
In November 2005 the first phase of negotiation between the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) about possible cooperation has been finished. It resulted in signing of a Memorandum of Understanding of Scientific Cooperation. The aim of this Memorandum is to establish and increase cooperation between researchers and institutions of these two countries in research and development area; enable the exchange of information and techniques and the use of specialized equipment available in the countries involved.
The agreement of cooperation involves all areas of research. All researchers and academic staff from universities, who fulfil the criteria for funding
by GACR and DFG, can take part.
The cooperation is focused on joint bilateral projects. Bilateral project proposals are submitted in English as one joint project simultaneously to both research funding organizations (DFG and GACR) for evaluation. The proposals should meet all criteria required by DFG and GACR. Call for proposals is supposed to be published once in a year, the first call was published in 2006, with total project’s duration two to three years. Proposals for bilateral projects have to be based on mutually complementary methodologies of solution the joint project. The projects should have one Czech and one German principle investigator.
The partner research funding organizations have agreed to conduct funding and evaluation of the proposals jointly. Evaluation will be performed using „Peer review“ system. Referees are chosen according to their professional specialization. The preference will be given to engagement of Czech and German specialists in the area involved. Based on proposal evaluation (and its comparison with other national proposal in current year) both national research funding organizations shall decide about supporting the proposal. The final decision on the funding of the bilateral research proposal depends on final approval from both research funding organizations (DFG, GACR).
The Presidium of the Czech Science Foundation published on March 9, 2011 Call for Proposals for bilateral grant
projects in cooperation with DFG with deadline on April 15, 2011.
Proposals can be submitted to German Research Foundation DFG continuously all the year round. Received project proposals are evaluated in review panels, which meet once in three or four months. Contact persons at the DFG are Philip Thelen, tel: +49 (228) 885-2663, email: Philip.Thelen@dfg.de and Marina Hesse, tel: +49 (228) 885-2585, email: Marina.Hesse@dfg.de.
Call for bilateral grant projects with DFG was published for the first time in 2006. GACR received 61 proposals for bilateral grant projects. The GACR Presidium has decided on awarding grant to 12 projects. The projects started in the middle of 2007.
In the 2007 Call for proposals 43 project proposals were submitted to the GACR. In total, 10 grants were awarded in cooperation with the DFG.
Within the 2008 Call for Proposals the GACR received 50 project proposals. Grants were awarded to 15 project proposals.