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Finding a Humboldt Host 2027: The Person Who Can Make or Break Your File

You choose your own host, the foundation does not help you find one, and the host’s confidential statement goes straight to the selection committee. Here is how to pick well and ask well.

ScholarshipUnion Editorial 4 min read Updated Oct 6, 2026

The host is not a formality. Your application does not even reach the foundation until your host has uploaded a detailed statement and a confirmation that research facilities are available. The foundation tells hosts that this statement is “crucial to the review process and very important to the Selection Committee.” Rules below are from the programme FAQ on the official page and the information for hosts.

Who can host you

Any researcher working at a university or research institution in Germany who offers you research facilities can host. In practice that means universities as well as non-university institutes such as those of the Max Planck, Helmholtz, Leibniz and Fraunhofer organisations. Two hosts are allowed: if they are at different institutes, each provides a statement and facilities confirmation; if they share an institute, one joint statement is enough but each confirms facilities separately.

If your host’s contract ends before your fellowship would (a temporary post, or retirement), the host must add confirmation from the institute’s management. Without it, the application is rejected on formal grounds.

Who should not host you

These choices sink applications

Your doctoral supervisor or the mentor of a postdoc longer than 12 months — the committee generally rejects these for “lack of further independent academic development”. The same applies to returning to an institute where you already had a long stay. A spouse, civil partner, parent, sibling or child cannot host you at all.

If you have already worked in Germany for 12 months or more, the foundation expects you to choose a new academic environment. The point of the fellowship is that you grow by moving.

Where to look

The foundation lists search tools on its FAQ. The most useful in practice:

GERiT — the DFG/DAAD portal of German research institutions, searchable by discipline.
GEPRIS — DFG-funded projects. A host with current DFG grants has an active group and resources.
The foundation’s own Network Online — searchable profiles of many of the 25,000+ researchers it has sponsored. A host who has hosted Humboldtians before knows the process.
Your own reading. The strongest host is usually someone whose papers you already cite and whose work would genuinely change your project.

How to approach a potential host

Hosts are told to accept only applications they “fully support and consider competitive”. Your first email has to make that judgement easy.

1
Email 1
A short, specific opening
Who you are, your two or three best papers, why their group, and that you intend to apply for a Humboldt Research Fellowship for a stated number of months.
2
Attach
A one-page project idea
The question, why it matters, and why it needs their lab, archive, dataset or method. Not your thesis summary.
3
Call
Agree scope and timing
Discuss the project, the length and any split into stays, the start date and which call you are aiming for.
4
Draft
Share the five-page outline
The foundation requires you to coordinate the outline with the host, but it must be your work.
5
Before the call opens
Warn them about the statement
They will receive a link after you submit and need time to write about two pages.

Start several months ahead. Under the call system the host’s upload is the last step before your application counts as received, and a call can fill while you wait.

What the host statement covers

The host’s list of questions (August 2025) asks them to write about two pages on:

How well they know you and how the contact came about
Your record: determination, mobility, thematic scope, productivity, prospects — and any structural barriers you faced
The quality and originality of your key publications
The research project: its innovative idea, focus, method, feasibility in the time requested
Whether you developed the project independently and how it overlaps with work at the institute
Security-relevant research aspects, if any
Whether your language skills are sufficient
For experienced researchers: your personal research profile

Question 5 is the reason not to let your host write your proposal. The foundation explicitly asks whether you prepared it yourself.

What the host gets

If you are funded, the host institute can receive a subsidy towards research costs of EUR 800 a month in the natural and life sciences and engineering, or EUR 500 a month in the humanities and social sciences, budget permitting. It is worth mentioning in your first email — it makes you cheaper than a standard postdoc. Hosts can also join the foundation’s Henriette Herz Scouting Programme, which lets them nominate up to three researchers from abroad for a fellowship within a short time.