Under German law you can have part-time self-employed work alongside your normal job.

And in fact, many people have.

They need to give you the money somehow, if they don't want to employ you, that is (as far as I know) the only way.

You're right! But then I'd really wish they'd refine the phrasing of the rule section.

In fact, if you have a full-time employer, this employer will in most work contracts reserve the "right" to your full work capacity, and will insist on a sign-off for other jobs besides the "full-time" one.

Sure, but the project you want to get fundet doesn't need to be full-time.

I know a bunch of people in full-time employment, who are self-employed on the side for few hours a week.

Also, some employers would let you reduce to 80% or 50% for a few months, if they're nice :)

That's true. But I think for people who don't have a self-employment status yet, this is a big obstacle to even apply.

Maybe it would make sense to open up the application for everybody, but to connect the grants to the self-employment status (i.e. the applicant get some timeframe to register the self-employment and if necessary talk to the employer).

I just think the rules lead to a strong restriction of the applicant pool and also the possible grant-worthy projects. But this might be intended...

As far as I can tell, the application doesn't ask for informations on your self-employment status.

And how long you are self-employed doesn't matter for the payment.

Yes, but my point is that nobody will try to get self-employement status first if he/she doesn't have it, before even knowing whether the project is accepted.

This would have implications on the relationship to the full-time employer, and also from a tax perspective (which is quite a hassle here in Germany, IMHO...).

You can get self-employment status in Germany for 26€ and about an hour of waiting. It's a single form to fill in, and doesn't have any tax implications until you actually start receiving income from it. Your full-time employer doesn't need to be notified or asked for permission. (your contract may require notification if you actually perform additional work, but getting the status itself is extremely low hassle)

I doubt it. So long as you have experts in the jury – as is the case with the prototype fund – you'll decrease the chances of BS proposals getting funded.

Any new module for an existing project is eligible as well. It's in the FAQs.

Hope a new module, that replace an old module (with less functionality) is accepted too.