Bilateral collaborations 2014 with Germany, Austria and Switzerland

In order to simplify and streamline scientific collaborations, create research funding areas without borders and thus contribute to the construction of the European Research Area, the French National Research Agency (ANR) puts in place bilateral collaborations with European funding agencies. The most advanced type of partnership is the “lead agency” procedure, in which the lead agency handles the submission and evaluation of the project proposals on behalf of both countries.

Under its 2014 Work Programme, the ANR has concluded an agreement with the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in order to facilitate the submission of bilateral project proposals between French and German, Austrian and Swiss research teams. The ANR-DFG, ANR-FWF and ANR-SNSF cooperation 2014 will be managed as a unilateral lead agency procedure, with DFG, FWF and SNSF serving as the lead agency respectively.  

Therefore, the project proposals must be submitted to those funding agencies only. The participants must comply with the submission rules applicable in those countries. It is not necessary to submit a proposal to ANR. French participants are only requested to fill in a financial form that is downloadable on the partner agency’s website.

Projects must be eligible for both agencies: regarding ANR, the eligibility criteria are those of the 2014 generic call for proposals.

Collaborations concern all the thematic fields falling within the scope of the partner agency’s specific programme (see below) and the ANR’s generic call. Therefore, Cancer research, HIV/Aids and viral hepatitis are not eligible to ANR funding. With Germany, the proposals in social science and humanities continue to be submitted in the dedicated ANR-DFG call in Social Sciences and Humanities (indicative opening date: January 2014).

The DFG, the FWF and the SNSF will manage the evaluation of projects. They will propose a list of projects to be funded to ANR. The funding decision will be made jointly by ANR and its funding counterpart. Each agency will fund its own national teams.

Selected projects will be able to start end of 2014.