Assessment

The Foundation’s governing bodies make their funding decisions based on external peer reviews (peer review process). These serve as the primary basis for all decisions. The Foundation provides the reviewers with guidance for preparing their reviews. You can find this guidance in our downloads area.

The review process follows the principle of strict confidentiality. At the same time, however, the Foundation makes its decision-making processes as transparent as possible. For this reason, the expert reviews are made available to applicants in an anonymized version. Due to the principle of confidentiality, the Foundation reserves the right to forward the reviews in part or in full.

The following rules apply:

• All applications for funding of €10,000 or more undergo a mandatory review process.
• Applications for funding of research projects are assessed by at least two external reviewers. If funding recommendations differ, the foundation will obtain a third opinion.
• For applications for funding of networking projects, the DSF generally commissions an expert review.
• For amounts under €10,000, the board can decide without external review. (In individual cases, a subsequent evaluation process may be required.)
• Applications from members of the Foundation Council and the Executive Board are subject to mandatory third-party review. For the Executive Board, this also applies to applications from their own institutions.