Project outline submission: October 15, 2024
Formal funding application submission: June 15, 2025

Budget

Project funding generally awards the grants as non-repayable subsidies up to a maximum of EUR 300,000 per project for a period of up to 36 months.

Eligible partners

Universities, research institutes, and other institutions that provide research contributions in the non-commercial sector are eligible to apply. At the time of payment of a grant, the existence of another institution that serves the non-commercial activity of the grant recipient (university, research institute, and institutions) is required in Germany.

Research institutions that receive basic funding from the federal government and/or the states can receive project funding for their additional project-related expenses or costs in addition to their institutional funding if they explicitly describe the connection between the project applied for and basic-funded activities in the funding application or clearly distinguish between the two.

Funding Aim

The aim of the funding is to generate new knowledge about relevant research, innovation, and social or geopolitical developments in the Asian research area and to place them in the German or European context. The directive is a part of the Federal Government’s strategy to internationalize education, science, and research.

Thematic focus

This funding directive supports interdisciplinary and innovation policy research projects, both as individual and as joint projects, with relevance for Germany and Europe using suitable and innovative methods. Those methods can be, but are not limited to, trend and foresight analyses, workshops, data and database analyses, AI applications, interviews, or fact-finding missions.

The projects should shed light on regional integration, i.e., partnerships, dependencies, and/or antagonisms, and establish a link to German or European developments and interests. The projects must focus on at least one of the following countries: India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, or Vietnam. Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region should always be included in the considerations. When it comes to questions of regional integration, alliances of states such as ASEAN and regional cooperation networks can also be included.

Eligible project activities

  • Investigate current research, innovation, and social or geopolitical developments in the target countries mentioned that are highly relevant for Germany or Europe and provide insight for decision-makers in politics, science, and business. 
  • Influence politics, (scientific) administration, and the interested public within the framework of a science communication strategy developed in accordance with the funding announcement.
  • Be implemented by interdisciplinary project teams (for example, from regional, Asian, social, political, humanities, natural sciences, and other disciplines) with existing expertise; the expertise must be documented by existing publications.
  • Strengthen young researchers in modern Asian studies in Germany and ensure a balanced composition of project teams in terms of gender.
  • Carry out a risk assessment for the proposed work regarding access to information (and possible alternatives, where appropriate).
  • Participate in networking workshops and prepare a policy brief (maximum three pages) prior to the last networking workshop within the project period.


This funding directive is effective from the publication date and remains valid until December 31, 2031.

For more details, please consult the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s website.