Cutting-Edge Research in Germany
Germany can look back on a long tradition of research and development. A large number of inventions and projects of numerous German Nobel Prize winners have shaped international science. The future too looks rosy for Germany as a seat of academic learning and state of the art technology.
Top universities are set to become beacons at international level. More and more young people are studying. And Germany is improving the working and living conditions and career prospects for academics from around the world, helping to make Germany even more attractive as a centre of academic and technological excellence.
The Initiative for Excellence and the Pact for Innovation and Research are ensuring that universities and scientific establishments in Germany have the resources they need to allow them to perform excellent research work.
With the Initiative for Excellence the federal and state-level governments have agreed to make available funding totalling 1.9 billion euros between 2006 and 2011 and additional 2.7 billion euros untill 2017 to promote the universities coming top of a nationwide competition. The aim of the initiative is to make leading German research work more competitive.
The universities selected are to be enabled to compete with the world's best. Up to twelve universities will receive special funding in recognition of their future concepts for cutting-edge university research. Forty post-graduate schools will benefit from this support. Universities cooperating on particularly promising projects with non-university research facilities, technical colleges and industry will qualify for additional assistance.
The first nine universities have received special funding as elite universities.
The Pact for Innovation and Research
Cutting-edge research is also being conducted at hundreds of research facilities outside universities, under bodies such as the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association, the Leibniz Association and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Here scientists can work under ideal conditions, such as are provided by very few other institutions in the world. These include promotion programmes, scholarships and exemplary interfaces between research and industry – which benefit both students and researchers.
The Pact for Research and Innovation promises major research organisations an annual increase in funding of at least five percent up to 2015. In return, the organisations undertake to further improve their effectiveness. The aim is to open up career opportunities for the best of the crop of young academics and scientists.