Munich

Jürgen Rüttgers, Germany's minister for education and research, may be about to resurrect his reputation as ‘minister for the future’. Last week, the German cabinet approved a funding increase of just under 1 per cent for education and research next year — almost twice the increase for the budget as a whole.

The research budget will now total nearly DM15 billion (US$8.5 billion). Rüttgers says that, if the funding increase is approved by parliament, the extra money will be allocated to previously established research priorities, including biotechnology, molecular medicine, information technology and environmental technology.

He will keep promises to maintain the level of special funding to support the development of research infrastructure in east Germany, and to increase by 5 per cent the budgets of the Max Planck Society and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany's university grants council. The budget of the Fraunhofer Society, which runs 47 applied research institutes, will rise by 3 per cent.

Because the relatively small increase in budget will not cover all these plans, Rüttgers has also proposed cuts. Most significant is his decision to reduce spending on nuclear safety, despite Germany's proximity to reactors in central and eastern Europe whose safety is uncertain.

Under the budget proposal, funding for safety research for nuclear power stations would be cut by 3.6 per cent, and for decommissioning nuclear power stations by around 6 per cent.

Rüttgers is proposing to cut by 11 per cent Germany's contributions to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. This will probably affect the agency's voluntary technical assistance fund, which supports a wide range of research, from reactor safety technology to the medical consequences of radiation exposure. The combined cuts will release just over DM50 million.