Currently 15 active paid grants, fellowships and residencies taking place in Germany, across AI, arts, film, journalism, research, tech and cross-disciplinary practice. Many are open to applicants of any nationality; check each entry for residency and citizenship requirements. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
Subscribe: RSS feed · Calendar (.ics)
The American Academy in Berlin is an independent, nonprofit institute for advanced study in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, journalism and public policy, whose primary mission is to strengthen the cultural and intellectual ties between the United States and Germany. Each year, after a rigorous selection process, the Academy awards roughly two dozen semester-long Berlin Prize fellowships to individuals who demonstrate excellence in their fields. DISCIPLINES: applications are welcome across the humanities, social sciences, law, journalism and various areas of public policy. The Academy generally encourages projects addressing pressing issues of the day, specifically naming democracy, security, technology and society (especially AI), energy including climate, and global order. Dedicated fellowships also support projects in Jewish studies, German studies, and public health and biotechnology. Project proposals need not focus on Germany, but candidates should explain how a residency in Berlin would enhance their work. NOT ACCEPTED: proposals in mathematics or the natural sciences. NOTE FOR ARTISTS: visual artists and composers are invited through separate, nomination-based competitions, so there is no open application route for them here. ELIGIBILITY: fellowships are restricted to citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Both emerging and established figures are eligible. PhD holders qualify as emerging scholars with a strong record of peer-reviewed work beyond the dissertation; candidates in non-academic fields such as journalism, filmmaking and policy need a significant record of publication or production; fiction and nonfiction writers must have published at least one book with a reputable press. WHAT FELLOWS DO: fellows present their work to audiences in and around Berlin through lectures, readings, public discussions, performances and film screenings, and should be willing to engage with relevant German institutions, organizations and the media; these activities are integral to the Academy's mission of fostering transatlantic dialogue. APPLICATION MATERIALS: a project proposal of 1,500 to 1,750 words plus a one-page bibliography; a curriculum vitae of up to 10 pages; two writing samples totalling no more than 60 pages; and three letters of recommendation, which are due 2 October 2026. DEADLINE: Friday 25 September 2026 at 12:00 noon Eastern Time (18:00 Central European Time). TIMELINE: all candidates are notified of the competition outcome by email in late March 2027; the 2027-28 Berlin Prize recipients are announced in May 2027.
Resynthesising the Traditional is CTM Festival's long-term initiative co-curated by Stas Sharifulla, taking resynthesis (the computer-music method of analysing a sound to extract its components) as a metaphor for critically engaging with tradition and heritage, against conservative views of culture as frozen and untouchable. The artistic lab at its heart is an open toolbox for artists connecting to the traditional outside exoticisation, cultural essentialism and uneven power dynamics. THEME, AT THE EXTREME: this edition invites artists and practice-based researchers whose work examines the ethical, aesthetic and political implications of traditions entangled with extremity: intensity, transgression, transformation, marginality, outsiderness, endurance, conflict and excess. The call explicitly looks past the usual noise, violence and loud-popular-music tropes and past masculine codings of the extreme, toward current queer and feminist reframings, treating extremity as a relational condition, chosen or imposed, produced between majoritarian centres and their minoritarian outsides. Guiding questions include what it means to follow a tradition to its extreme consequences, who is allowed to push tradition to its limits and whose practices get framed as inauthentic or dangerous, what it means to practise tradition under war, displacement, repression or ecological crisis, and how traditions might offer ways of inhabiting extreme times. Preference goes to work engaging technological, bodily, aesthetic and theoretical forms at that intersection, especially in unexpected or rarely recognised ways. WHAT HAPPENS: theory and practice workshops from the co-hosts with individual and group exercises, closed 15 to 20 minute oral presentations by each participant, a solo public performance or presentation (15 to 20 minutes) at a free-entry event, inputs from specialists such as artists, researchers and technologists, guided individual and group sonic improvisations, field trips and site visits, and feedback sessions with the co-hosts and curators. AFTERWARDS: participants may propose new artistic work or research, solo or in collaborations formed at the lab, to the artistic team; selected works are shortlisted, and up to two are commissioned and presented at CTM in January/February 2028. ELIGIBILITY: an existing practice tied to (re)connecting with traditional ideas and sounds through a contemporary lens and how that overlaps with the extreme, plus clear ideas or questions about the next step you want to take. Approaches may be technological, instrument-focused, compositional, aesthetic, research-oriented or otherwise. Working knowledge of English is recommended, and any concerns about that can be flagged in the form. Up to six participants are selected by co-hosts Karina Utomo (extreme metal vocalist, composer and collaborative artist) and Luigi Monteanni (sound researcher and ethnomusicologist completing a PhD at SOAS on extreme metal in Bandung). The lab is a time-intensive full-day commitment and participants must agree to give the short public performance. APPLY through the form with a portfolio link (PDF, max 10 pages, public access, works from the last five years, text kept minimal) and a link to a specific audio track or section (max five minutes) that best represents your current practice. CTM asks that AI support rather than replace your own voice in the application. TIMELINE: deadline 28 September 2026; participants announced mid to late October 2026. Questions to resynth@ctm-festival.de.
Musikfonds Large Project Funding supports new, experimental and contemporary music projects with grants of up to EUR 50,000. A minimum 10 percent co-financing is required and the artist fee must be at least EUR 300 per concert. Applicants and projects must be based in Germany; pure audio or video productions, university projects and amateur-only projects are excluded. The application window runs 1 to 30 September 2026. NOTE: research-sourced; confirm current figures and window dates on the Musikfonds site before applying.
transmediale e.V. invites applications for the Festival Curation of transmediale 2028, the Berlin festival for art and digital culture now in its 40th year. Since 2025 transmediale appoints a new curator for each edition, each bringing their own positionality on the present moment in art and technology; the organisation is especially interested in curatorial approaches that bring genuinely new questions and reference points to the field, grounded in critical reflection and political engagement rather than following technological trends. THE ROLE: develop the curatorial concept and full programme for transmediale 2028 (last week of January 2028), spanning a discourse programme (lectures, panels, conversations, presentations, talks), a workshop programme, a video and film programme, a performance programme, and art projects presented during the festival days, plus events from longstanding and new partnerships. The curator works closely with the festival team, represents the festival publicly, plays an active role in fundraising, and contributes to transmediale's local and international networks. TASKS: establishing the festival concept, theme and title; developing the event and programme structure with festival management and the executive and advisory board; selecting participants, projects and artworks; producing related texts and contributing to public relations and fundraising; adhering to budget management policies and helping acquire additional financial resources; collaborating with the team and submitting reports throughout. REQUIREMENTS: comprehensive knowledge of international contemporary and media art with the ability to critically examine the intersection of art, technology, media, science, society and politics; a clear curatorial and thematic vision; at least 5 years of experience in programme development across multiple formats with an experimental approach (experience leading cultural projects is advantageous); solid fundraising experience for cultural and artistic projects; a supra-regional network in the art and cultural scenes; excellent communication skills, integrity and a collaborative mindset; fluency in English or German; alignment with transmediale's values. CONDITIONS: freelance position, December 2026 until March 2028, ca. 70% commitment across the contract period and full-time from October 2027; Berlin-based or willing to relocate for key periods, with relocation to Berlin required from October/November 2027; the position may be filled by an individual or a group. A contract extension for the 2029 edition will be considered in summer 2027. SUBMISSION: application form (downloadable from the call page) plus a cover letter of under 700 words, via the submission platform only; additional documents are not reviewed. Queries to apply[at]transmediale.de. Deadline 30 September 2026, 23:59 CET.
Work stipends for women film and video artists under the Berlin Senate's Kuenstlerinnenfoerderung (women artists' funding program). ELIGIBILITY: women film and video artists based in Berlin. Deadline 1 October 2026, 11:00 CEST, per the Senate's official deadline calendar. NOTE: research-sourced from the Senate deadline calendar; the stipend amount was not published there, so confirm details on the Senate funding pages before applying.
The Research Networking Day (RND) is an exchange platform for graduate or postgraduate students and independent artists conducting self-guided research traversing audio, arts, media, design, and related theoretical disciplines. The RND 2027 open call seeks innovative and critical submissions from all areas of study addressing the CTM 2027 festival theme 'Process...ing'. Nine selected candidates give short ten-minute presentations within different modules, linked by discussion rounds at the end of each module, offering an international platform to exchange with colleagues and researchers working on related ideas; research is also shared via audio/video after the festival on CTM's YouTube and SoundCloud channels. This edition takes place in collaboration with the Design Academy Eindhoven, Universitat der Kunste Berlin (UdK), and Leuphana University Luneburg. CONDITIONS: presentations take place on-site within the festival's Discourse programme, in English; applications are for individual (solo) presentations only (no duos or groups). As in previous years, no funding is available for travel and accommodation; participants receive a CTM 2027 festival pass, a catered lunch on the day, and a group dinner. Entrance to the event is free. KEY DATES: application deadline 25 October 2026 at 23:59 CET; programme announced mid to late November 2026; RND 2027 event Sunday 24 January 2027; CTM 2027 runs 22 to 31 January 2027.
Outer Ear is Musikfonds' dedicated special programme for participatory projects in experimental music, and the strand that most cleanly matches an experimental and sound-art public-programme brief rather than concert-series funding. It emphasises the creative process and audience participation over finished works, explicitly targeting audiences for experimental music, which makes it suitable for workshop-plus-presentation formats, listening programmes and process-led sound art events. Application windows run twice yearly: 1 to 30 April 2026 (closed) and 1 to 30 October 2026, the next live deadline. THE FIRST OUTER EAR ROUND WAS HIGHLY COMPETITIVE, with 14 projects approved at an 8.6 percent success rate, so treat it as a long shot. As with all Musikfonds strands, the applicant must be based in Germany, projects abroad are ineligible, and double-funding with BKM or with projects run by permanently institutionally supported bodies is excluded. Note that Musikfonds' Small and Large Project Funding strands are listed separately in the Grant Desk; Outer Ear is a distinct programme with its own window.
Umbrella request for proposals for ambitious AI-first projects that make the transition to capable AI go well and use it to unlock science. Three connected layers, each with its own detailed call: I. Local Compute (compute that individuals or communities physically own and control); II. Coordination and Accountability (supercollaboration and decentralized alignment, human empowerment, AI insurance and open governance); III. AI-First Science: Bio, Neuro, Nano (automated nanotechnology, whole-brain emulation, replacement, enhancement, biostasis). AI-first means AI is the primary engine of progress, not tapped onto an existing research program; strong proposals identify narrow bottlenecks and propose something that can be built, tested or measured. Selected projects receive grant funding, private local compute, workspace at the San Francisco or Berlin AI Nodes, travel-paid field-building events and access to Foresight's advisors and scientific network. ELIGIBILITY: individuals, teams, and nonprofit or for-profit organisations worldwide (for-profits must justify their need for grant funding); applicants who want to be active in-person contributors at the Nodes are strongly prioritised. Grants typically $30,000 to $100,000, smaller for the Human Empowerment and AI Insurance & Open Governance areas and higher for the rest. Review takes about three months after the deadline. Deadline 31 October 2026, 23:59 PDT.
Track I of Foresight Institute's AI for Science & Safety Nodes RFP funds building and scaling local compute setups that individuals or communities physically own and control. With five companies holding 71 percent of the world's AI compute, researchers relying on APIs and rented compute face data exposure, steep price increases and the risk of losing access altogether; open models are ready for serious science and safety work, but the ecosystem lacks sovereign and secure compute infrastructure. LOOKING FOR: local compute clusters in different sizes and configurations that are easy to set up and run across varied connectivity and electricity environments; blueprints for easy yet secure cluster management; models for bringing down cost, like selling idle compute or connecting to community clusters; ideally a business case for building, selling and distributing such clusters at scale. EXAMPLE DELIVERABLES: a prototype AI cluster an average person can deploy at home, software that runs a node without expert knowledge, economic models showing how the hardware pays for itself, a pilot deployment for individuals or communities. Selected projects receive grant funding, private local compute, workspace at the San Francisco or Berlin AI Nodes, travel-paid field-building events and access to Foresight's advisors and network; in-person contributors at the Nodes are strongly prioritised. Individuals, teams, and nonprofit or for-profit organisations worldwide may apply (for-profits must justify their need for grant funding). Deadline 31 October 2026, 23:59 PDT.
Track II of Foresight Institute's AI for Science & Safety Nodes RFP funds ways for increasingly capable AI systems to coordinate with each other, the people using them, and the wider world, without handing power to a single model, lab or government. THREE FOCUS AREAS: (1) Supercollaboration and decentralized alignment: coordination and credit-assignment protocols, tooling for massive human-AI collectives, incentive designs robust to gaming, mutual monitoring and cross-checking among agents, scalable verification, and open coordination protocols built on boundaries as Schelling points for multi-agent coordination. (2) Human Empowerment: evidence, decision rules and working tools for when human control genuinely empowers people versus when AI delegation is preferable, including a 'when to defer control' framework and mechanisms to detect and fix hollow oversight. (3) AI Insurance and Open Governance: building a middle layer between lab self-governance and government regulation, such as ways for insurers to judge and price frontier-lab risk, independent incident reporting and assessment that does not leak lab secrets, and mechanisms like developer mutuals, catastrophe bonds or liability for near-misses. Selected projects receive grant funding, private local compute, workspace at the San Francisco or Berlin AI Nodes, travel-paid field-building events and access to Foresight's advisors and network; in-person contributors at the Nodes are strongly prioritised. Individuals, teams, and nonprofit or for-profit organisations worldwide may apply (for-profits must justify their need for grant funding). Deadline 31 October 2026, 23:59 PDT.
Track III of Foresight Institute's AI for Science & Safety Nodes RFP funds AI-first science in bio, neuro and nano: work that asks what important science is stuck, what it is actually stuck on, and whether we can build the thing that removes that constraint. THREE FOCUS AREAS: (1) Automated nanotechnology: AI methods for nanoscale design, simulation and assembly, closed-loop fabrication and characterization tools, credible application pathways from toy problems to medicine, environment and bottom-up production, and defensive applications and safety frameworks. (2) Whole-brain emulation: cheaper and faster brain mapping and preservation, bringing down the cost of connectomics through better imaging or cheaper proofreading, lo-fi emulation pathways that predict organism behavior from behavioral and neural data, and shorter experimental feedback loops in neurobiology. (3) Replacement, Enhancement, Biostasis: longevity work including tissue engineering, organ synthesis, 3D bioprinting and progressive replacement strategies; reversible biostasis for organs and full humans with improved preservation and revival protocols and organ banking; and datasets for independently testing genetic predictors, gene editing and better measures of aging. Selected projects receive grant funding, private local compute, workspace at the San Francisco or Berlin AI Nodes, travel-paid field-building events and access to Foresight's advisors and network; in-person contributors at the Nodes are strongly prioritised. Individuals, teams, and nonprofit or for-profit organisations worldwide may apply (for-profits must justify their need for grant funding). Deadline 31 October 2026, 23:59 PDT.
The European Media Art Platform (EMAP/EMARE) is a network of leading European media-art organisations offering fully funded two-month production residencies for artists working with digital media, including media art, bio art and robotic art. Each residency provides a EUR 4,000 grant to the applying artist (including subsistence), a EUR 4,000 project budget, host-provided accommodation, travel covered according to EU ceilings, and access to technical facilities and media labs; a collaborating artist receives an additional EUR 2,000 (EUR 6,000 total for a duo). Residencies take place at one of 15 host institutions across Austria, France, Slovakia, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Germany and Poland. ELIGIBILITY: applicants must be EU residents or taxpayers in an EU member state, or residents/taxpayers of one of the eligible non-EU countries (Netherlands-based artists qualify). Undergraduate and Master's students are not eligible; PhD candidates and emerging artists of any age and academic background may apply. IMPORTANT: applicants must apply as a duo or collective, or propose a collaborative project, rather than as a purely solo applicant. The 2027 open call runs from 3 September 2026 to 6 November 2026 at 14:00 CET. Apply online at call.emare.eu. No application fee.
Prototype Fund supports the development of socially relevant open-source software, offering low-threshold funding and coaching to individual developers and small teams. ELIGIBILITY: individual developers or teams of up to four; funded members must reside in the EU and the lead entity must be based in Germany. Application window 1 October to 30 November 2026. Apply via the Prototype Fund application page.
Rolling general project funding for smaller media-art works, events and research. Covers interdisciplinary projects across music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literature, film, architecture, socioculture, intercultural and interreligious dialogue, and children's and youth culture. For artists, professionals, initiatives and institutions based in Karlsruhe (group applications must include at least one person/institution with first residence or registered office in Karlsruhe). Applied for via the City of Karlsruhe online application; selected by UCCoMA Office staff.
The microagi Research Fellowship (Cohort 01) provides researchers with frontier-lab resources and the freedom to work on hard problems in robotics, embodied AI, and the systems around them. Fellows work in residence for six months at microagi's offices in Munich or Zurich. AMOUNT: up to $2,000,000 in compute; $10,000/month stipend. RESEARCH AREAS: (1) Long Horizon Dexterous Manipulation -- end-to-end models for complex multi-stage tasks with dexterous hands, natural language instruction following, memory across long task sequences, fine-grained physical control in unstructured environments; (2) Cross Embodiment Learning; (3) On Device Physical Intelligence; (4) Safe and Reliable Deployment. microagi's model is to deploy embodied intelligence into physical-world operations and turn what it learns there into compounding research. REFERRAL: $10,000 bonus for referring a candidate who is accepted into the cohort. No application deadline publicly stated as of June 2026 -- one cohort only, apply as soon as possible via https://www.microagi.ai/fellowship.