Dec 2 2008
On 1 January 2009 the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) will launch ten new Collaborative Research Centres. They will be initially funded for the next four years with a total of approximately 90 million euros. Among other things, the new Collaborative Research Centres will study the origins of diseases caused by viruses and bacteria, scarring of the liver and kidneys, and the human skin.
Other topics include the optimisation of planning, production and utilisation processes in lightweight engineering and the improvement of communications between humans and technical systems. Four Transregional Collaborative Research Centres are among the ten institutions, distributed among several locations. In addition to these institutions, the responsible Grants Committee of Germany's central research funding organisation also agreed to continue 28 Collaborative Research Centres for an additional period. The DFG thus will fund a total of 250 Collaborative Research Centres as of next year.
In 2009, they will receive around 480 million euros, including 20% overhead funding to cover indirect costs resulting from the research projects. The Grants Committee's autumn meeting also observed the Collaborative Research Centres' 40th anniversary: in the autumn of 1968 the first 18 Collaborative Research Centres were launched – with total funding amounting to 4.4 million Deutschmarks. This new type of collaborative research was seen as a “minor revolution” DFG President Professor Matthias Kleiner remembers in an anniversary speech to the Grants Committee. In both the universities and the DFG, Kleiner said, the Collaborative Research Centres had also initially given rise to apprehension – 40 years on, they have more than fulfilled expectations.
“Universities can bundle their resources, create local priorities and promote top-level research with the aid of Collaborative Research Centres,” the DFG President underlined. In particular their concentrated quality, their interdisciplinary approach and the endurance of funding projects for up to 12 years make the Collaborative Research Centres a “programme for quantifiable, top-level research”. The Collaborative Research Centres, and their variations the Transregional Collaborative Research Centres and Transfer Projects, also contribute to promoting young researchers, to international research cooperation and to cooperation between science and the private sector.
The conclusion of the DFG President following 40 years of Collaborative Research Centres: “The whole world is envious of this programme.”