We recommend getting in touch with a potential funder before submitting an application to establish whether it is worthwhile doing so. To this end you could prepare a brief description based on the answers to the following questions:

1. Who is making the enquiry and who are the partners?
2. What is the subject of the enquiry? - name, time frame and description of the project
3. What objectives are you pursuing with the project and how do you propose to achieve them?
4. In what respect will this project contribute to furthering current knowledge?
5. What is your total estimated budget and how is it divided up between personnel, equipment, travel costs, publication costs etc.?
6. Where do you see the relevance to the funding institution?
   
   

An application contains the following steps

1. Formulation of a brief description of the research and development (R&D) project.
2. Enquiry with the funder as to whether an application would be worthwhile.
3. Discussion of the scientific and technical content and exploitation strategy, conditions of funding and approval with the funder.
4. Formulation of the project application, completion of the application forms (e.g. in the case of federal funding using the electronic application assistant, EASY-Online)