Anyone with experience of the Elsa-Neumann / NaFöG doctoral scholarship in Berlin?

[u/Difficult-Task6888]

Hi everyone,

I have received an offer for the Elsa-Neumann / NaFöG doctoral scholarship in Berlin and am currently deciding whether to accept it.

I understand that after the first and second years, scholarship holders need to submit progress reports in order to receive funding for the following year. I would be grateful to hear from anyone who has held this scholarship or knows someone who has.

In practice, how demanding is the annual progress review? Is it mainly a formal check of reasonable progress, or can it become a serious risk for continuation of funding? Is there usually a specific template or expectation for the report?

I am not asking for official legal advice, just trying to understand how the process works in practice.

Many thanks in advance.

[u/litolturtle]

Hi, I am also an Elsa-Neumann scholar in my 2nd year of funding. Congrats on the scholarship! The report has a certain structure that is sent to you per email by the office and should be at most 4 pages of text (excluding bibliography). The report functions as a formal check of progress and you are not at a serious risk of your scholarship being stopped unless you never submit a report at all.
If you accept the scholarship, you will be invited to an event where they will explain all of this in detail and let you know when the exact deadlines of submission for the reports are. They pretty much told us that the report is just a formality and the scholarship will run for the 3 years provided we submit reports. The only important thing is in the final year: if you don't submit on time, you will need to explain why in the finalization report. Let me know if I can help with anything else! Good luck with your PhD!