Merck KGaA Research Grants 2026: Five Topic Calls Worth Up to €250,000 a Year for Two to Three Years, Plus SYNTHIA® Licenses, Closing 31 August 2026

Merck KGaA Research Grants 2026: Five Topic Calls Worth Up to €250,000 a Year for Two to Three Years, Plus SYNTHIA® Licenses, Closing 31 August 2026

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany has run an open-innovation research grants programme since 2018, and the 2026 edition is open with a submission deadline of 31 August 2026 at 23:59 Central European Summer Time. Across the programme’s history, grants of up to €500,000 per year for up to three years have been made available. The 2026 call is narrower and more specific: five clearly written topics, each with its own funding ceiling, ranging from a single award of up to €250,000 per year for two years down to a set of software licenses.

What makes this call unusual is the structure. It is not a conventional foundation grant where you write a proposal, wait, and receive money. It is a three-stage collaborative process that ends in a bilateral agreement with a corporate research organisation, with regular scientific meetings during the funding period. That changes who it fits and how you should write.

Key Details

The Five 2026 Topics and What Each One Funds

The topics are specific enough that you can tell within a paragraph whether your work fits. That specificity is deliberate — the funder states it will only disqualify proposals that fall entirely outside the scope of a grant description, but the topics are written to attract a particular kind of solution.

In-vitro models and assays to identify novel therapies for neuroinflammatory diseases. One grant of up to €250,000 per year for up to two years. The call asks for predictive in-vitro models to identify and optimise novel small-molecule medicines for human neuroinflammatory disease, with Parkinson’s disease framed as the motivating case: the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disorder, affecting more than 10 million people worldwide and roughly 1% of those over 60, with all approved treatments symptomatic and no disease-modifying therapies available. The stated diagnosis is that repeated late-stage failures come from poor translatability of animal models and the heterogeneity of human pathology. Wanted: models that recapitulate the cellular microenvironment affected by neuroinflammation, are amenable to medium-to-high-throughput assays, and are amenable to pharmacological and genomic manipulation. The example given is a co-culture system containing patient iPSC-derived neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and active microglia. Applications should include evidence that the model recapitulates essential features of the neuro-immune axis — active microglial-neuronal crosstalk, innate immunocompetence, and dynamic responses to several inflammatory stimuli — with readouts such as cytokine quantification, morphological changes, and neurotoxic protein aggregation.

Artificial intelligence in cell culture media and process development. Up to one grant of up to €150,000 per year for up to three years. The ask is for robust, host-agnostic, easily parameterised models that speed up fit-for-purpose optimisation of bioprocesses across a broad base of host organisms. The framing references mechanistic and hybrid modelling to understand the nutrient requirements of mammalian cell lines, and names CHO and HEK293 cells used to manufacture protein therapeutics, vaccines, and cell and gene therapies. Your proposal should include a non-confidential description of your model and the key parameters relevant to optimising cell culture media, plus a data strategy for continuous improvement that keeps the model adaptable across mammalian host organisms.

Innovative approaches to economical remediation of contaminated high-volume materials. One grant of up to €150,000 per year for up to two years. This one addresses legacy contamination from processes that were legally compliant at the time: contaminated soils, wastewater and groundwater. The specific focus is high-volume, low-contamination soil and water bearing chloro-organic pollutants, particularly hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH). Proposals must outline practical feasibility at large scale — the word “mandatorily” appears in the call text, which is a strong signal that a purely bench-scale demonstration will not clear the bar.

Condensate-based high-sensitivity cell-free screening assays for the modulation of protein-protein interactions. Up to one grant of up to €100,000 per year for up to three years. The scientific premise: enhancing or disrupting PPIs with small molecules, such as molecular glue degraders or disruptors of functional complexes, is an emerging drug-discovery field, but current screening technologies often lack sensitivity and fail to mimic cellular conditions. Because local protein concentrations in cells are frequently raised by sequestration into condensates, the call seeks cell-free assays that replicate that crowded macromolecular environment in vitro. Applications should describe anticipated sensitivity improvements versus traditional cell-free approaches, any additional advantages, and the specific types of PPIs targeted.

Advancing molecule synthesis and discovery. Up to three grants, each comprising a one-year full SYNTHIA® Retrosynthesis Software license, training, and extensive interaction with company scientists. This is the one non-cash category. It invites proposals on the synthesis of novel molecules or the design and development of analogue compound libraries, including those for structure-activity relationship studies. Proposals should describe the synthetic project, be suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and describe how SYNTHIA® would be used. SYNTHIA® combines expert-coded organic synthesis rules with algorithms and draws on a database of over 12 million commercially available starting materials and building blocks.

Who This Fits

Eligibility is deliberately wide: the programme is open to scientists at all career stages affiliated with any research-based institution, university or company. There is no nationality restriction stated, no requirement to hold a permanent post, and no cap on how junior you can be. Industry applicants are explicitly in scope alongside academics.

The narrower filter is fit-to-topic and appetite for industrial collaboration. Six evaluation criteria are named in the FAQ: innovativeness, commercial potential, path forward after the funding period ends, probability of success, team strength, and strategic fit. Three of those — commercial potential, path forward, strategic fit — are about what happens to the work after the grant. If your project is beautiful basic science with no plausible route to application, this is the wrong call. If you are uncomfortable signing a participant’s agreement, working under confidentiality, or holding regular meetings with company scientists during the funding period, this is also the wrong call.

Conversely, if you have a platform, an assay, a model system, or a remediation method that needs industrial validation and a partner with manufacturing context, the structure here is a genuine advantage over a foundation cheque.

The Application Process, Stage by Stage

Stage 1 — non-confidential submission. You register on the online submissions portal with a valid email address, then fill out the application form using non-confidential information only. Required content at this stage is limited: title, abstract, and information on the project team. You may add documents and graphics that explain the concept; there are no formal requirements for attachments and most common formats work, including PDF and PowerPoint. You must read and accept the terms and conditions before submitting. You may submit multiple applications across the topics that are relevant to your proposal.

The non-confidentiality rule is the single most important operational constraint. Do not put unpublished sequences, unfiled invention disclosures, or proprietary process parameters into the stage-one form. Describe capability and result, not the mechanism you cannot afford to disclose.

Stage 2 — deep-dive workshop. Applications that pass the first evaluation are invited to submit a full proposal under confidentiality and join a deep-dive workshop. All teams reaching this stage will be informed in October 2026. The overview page states workshops are currently scheduled for November and December 2026; the FAQ states November 2026 — treat the exact date as provisional and confirm with the programme once invited. At the workshop, invited submitters advance their proposals together with company managers and scientists under a signed participant’s agreement, then present the optimised proposal. Winners are selected at the end of the workshop.

Stage 3 — funding. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany enters into bilateral collaboration agreements with winning recipients to enable pay-out and project start. Regular meetings with company scientists run through the collaboration period.

All applicants are informed of the selection committee’s decision. Unsuccessful stage-one applicants are notified by email; because of application volume, detailed feedback on the abstract stage is not provided, and no information on submissions is revealed.

How to Write a Competitive Stage-One Abstract

The stage-one form is short, which means every sentence is load-bearing. A few things follow directly from how these topics are written.

Answer the stated sub-requirements explicitly. Each topic includes a short list of what the proposal “should include” or what evidence to provide. Reviewers reading dozens of abstracts will look for those items. If the neuroinflammation topic asks for evidence of microglial-neuronal crosstalk and dynamic responses to several inflammatory stimuli, name the stimuli and the readouts you have data for.

Lead with evidence you already have. “Probability of success” and “team strength” are named criteria. Preliminary data, a working prototype, a published method, or a validated cell line beat an elegant plan.

Be concrete about scale where scale is the point. The remediation topic makes large-scale practical feasibility mandatory. Give volumes, cost-per-tonne estimates, or throughput figures rather than asserting scalability.

Say what happens after the money runs out. “Path forward after funding period ends” is an explicit criterion and is the one most academic applicants skip. Two or three sentences on the next step — a larger validation study, a licensing route, a partner site — is enough.

Use the attachment allowance. A single well-made schematic of your model or assay does more work than another paragraph, and attachments carry no formal format requirements.

Common Mistakes

Including confidential material at stage one is the most damaging error, because it cannot be undone. The second most common is treating a near-miss topic as a match — the programme will disqualify proposals that fall entirely outside a grant description, so a project that merely shares vocabulary with a topic wastes the submission. Third is ignoring the collaborative endpoint: a proposal that reads as though the funder is a passive donor misses that the deep-dive workshop exists to reshape your project jointly with company scientists.

A practical one: publicity rights sit with the funder. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany retains the exclusive right to make any press release or public communication about the grant and the awardees, though confidential project details are not revealed. If your institution has its own announcement expectations, raise that with your press office early rather than after an award.

Finally, note the trademark distinction on the official site. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany is not affiliated with Merck & Co., Inc.; in the United States and Canada its businesses operate as MilliporeSigma, EMD Serono and EMD Electronics. If you search for “Merck grants” you will find two unrelated programmes.

Frequently Asked Questions

When exactly does it close? Submissions are accepted until 31 August 2026, 23:59 Central European Summer Time.

Can I apply to more than one topic? Yes. The FAQ states you should apply to those research topics relevant to your proposal and may submit multiple applications.

Do I need to be at a university? No. Affiliation with any research-based institution, university or company qualifies.

What if my proposal fits the topic but not every aspect of it? Only proposals falling entirely outside the scope of the grant description are disqualified. Eligible proposals are evaluated against the criteria in the terms and conditions.

What do I submit first? Title, abstract and project team information, plus optional explanatory documents or graphics — all non-confidential.

When will I hear back? Teams reaching the deep-dive stage are informed in October 2026.

Who do I contact for technical problems? Email [email protected], which is also the address given for trouble uploading documents to the submissions portal.

Next Steps and Official Links

Read the full topic descriptions and the terms and conditions on the official page before drafting, since the funding ceilings and durations differ by topic and the terms must be accepted at submission. The programme also runs a newsletter for updates on future calls, which is worth joining if the 2026 topics do not match your work — prior editions have covered green hydrogen, molecular glue degraders, AI-driven drug discovery, organoids, bioelectronics, smart consumables for biomanufacturing and multi-purpose microphysiological systems, and the topic set turns over each year.

• Official programme page, 2026 topics, terms and conditions, and FAQs: https://www.emdgroup.com/en/research/open-innovation/research-grants.html
• Programme contact for submission and portal issues: [email protected]

If you plan to apply, register on the submissions portal well before 31 August 2026 rather than on the day. First-time users must register with a valid email address, and the stage-one form is short enough that the real risk is a last-minute portal problem rather than a shortage of writing time.