The DFG offers specific funding programmes for researchers in early career phases. This Infobrief examines to what extent those who submitted a proposal under these programmes a few years ago have since remained attached to the German research system on a long-term basis. The monitoring approach presented here, based on DFG data, was first used for the DFG study “Forschungsförderung und Karrierewege” published in 2017. As such, this Infobrief is particularly dedicated to a comparison over time, allowing conclusions to be drawn as to whether different cohorts of applicants remain in the German research system or become professor to varying degrees.