munich

The Helmholtz Society (HGF), an umbrella organization that oversees Germany's 16 national research centres, is to set up a system of ‘strategy funds’ worth DM150 million (US$87 million) for which the centres will have to apply competitively.

HGF centres are financed jointly by the federal government (90 per cent) and the host state (Land, 10 per cent), and have a total annual budget of about DM3 billion. In future, each centre will have to contribute 5 per cent of its institutional budget, which covers running costs, investment costs and salaries, to the new funds.

This money will be redistributed through competition. Centres can apply for research projects worth upwards of DM10 million, limited to three years. In the first round, the centres must submit applications by next January to a senate committee of six scientific and six industrial members. Proposals will then be reviewed by a scientific panel that will include foreign members. Germany's main research grant-giving body, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, is to support the committee in its choice of referees. The HGF senate, which consists of members from the political, scientific and industrial arenas, will make its final decisions next spring, and the chosen projects will start in July 1998.

Areas likely to be covered by the new funds include bioinformatics, environmental technologies and superconductors. In addition, from next year they will be used to finance HGF's Young Scientists Programme. The society will advertise jobs for around 500 young scientists in the next three years.

After a meeting last week with Joachim Treusch, the HGF president, Germany's research minister, Jürgen Rüttgers, promised support for the new plans.

Scientists at HGF have broadly welcomed the competition plans, but they are concerned that large interdisciplinary HGF centres with a strong base in applied research, such as the Forschungszentrum Jülich, are likely to benefit most because of their strong links with industry.

“We certainly don't shy away from competition”, says Max Tilzer, director of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. “But to make sure we get a fair chance, industrial and basic research projects have to be treated equally.”

Treusch, who is director of both the Helmholtz Society and the Forschungszentrum Jülich, dismisses the fear that, in accordance with prevailing political opinion, basic research could fall behind. “HGF centres of excellence should have hopes instead of fears,” he says.