Tips for your successful application:

• First of all, please register at the online portal of Dahlem Research School. Choose the format you want to apply for; if you want to apply for several positions, you will have to create separate applications, because they will be evaluated in different processes. After the successful registration, an option called “My Progress” will appear at the top left corner of the form under “OpenCampus Menu”. Clicking on it will open your application. You can view your application at any time and save your edits before submitting it.

• You only need one account, even if you want to apply for several positions. If you are applying for several positions, you must create separate applications within your account by clicking on the “Apply for FSGS” button. You may submit only one application per application format, i.e., a total of five. Please note that you create a new application with each click. These applications cannot be deleted afterwards.

• Please fill out the personal information page first. It is part of the applicant’s file and not identical to the registration. The other pages can only be edited once this page is fully completed.Here you have to indicate the program format you are applying for (DAAD, PhD position at the FSGS, short-term fellowship, CSC fellowship).

• Please choose your first supervisor from the circle of Principle Investigators (PIs) at Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School. In the online application portal, you will see which PIs you can tentatively select as your preferred supervisors. You do not need to contact them at this stage and this choice is not final. You don’t need a confirmation from the supervisor at this point.

• You must provide two letters of recommendation for all program formats, except in the case of PhD positions with already secured external funding. Reviewers may be professors or academic staff members who know you and your academic work well. There is no formal specification for the recommendation letters. The reviewers will receive an email with information on how to upload the letter of recommendation as soon as you have sent the application. Ideally, you’d get in touch with your reviewers in advance, so that they are aware of the upcoming system-generated email. Letters of recommendation can be uploaded within seven days after the application deadline. Please communicate this date to the people you are asking for a letter of recommendation well in advance. If your reviewers should have any problems with this procedure, they may send their signed recommendation letter via email as a PDF.

• Advisor teams in a structured doctoral studies program can consist of up to three members. Apart from the first supervisor, one certified professor who is not member of the FSGS may be assigned.

• Please do not upload any seminar papers as work samples. An excerpt from your bachelor’s or master’s thesis, or from a publication is required. The work samples must be written in German or English. If you do not have any work samples in these languages, you may provide your own translation and submit it together with the original.

• If you have received your university degree at a foreign university, we will check through ANABIN whether your university is approved in Germany.

• If you are applying for a doctoral position without already having secured external funding and are interested in a 9-month scholarship and program to help you obtain external funding (formerly called project grant / “Projektstipendium”), you must submit your university degree certificate by the end of April at the latest.
  If your degree certificate is not yet available at the time of application, please upload other documents regarding your expected degree (transcripts, preliminary records of grades, letters from university staff, etc.).

• Language certificates may be handed in later. Please include an explanation regarding existing and pending certificates with your application as well as a date by which you expect to hand in the certificates. Sufficient basic knowledge is, however, required.

• Your application is submitted only once you have clicked the “save and submit” button. You will then receive a confirmation email. Please note that the “save and submit” button will disappear after the application deadline has ended. You will still see your details and the uploaded documents, but you won't be able to submit your application after the deadline has ended. Only the confirmation of receipt sent by email indicates that you have successfully submitted the application.

The application deadline ends on 16 November 2025 at 23:59 CET.