Munich

The German science ministry has launched an Earth sciences programme that will give priority to interdisciplinary projects with socio-economic relevance.

Germany's research minister, Edelgard Bulmahn, has allocated DM500 million (US$270 million) over the next 15 years for funding the new programme, called Geotechnologies, which will start next year.

In addition, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany's main funding agency for university research, will make about DM20 million per year available to support interdepartmental university research in the Earth sciences.

The money is urgently needed: geological research in Germany has been in crisis since the mid-1990s, when several large-scale projects, such as the continental drilling programme, came to an end (see Nature 382, 196; 1996).

The new programme is designed to unite the fragmented German Earth science community and increase the relevance of their work to the management of resources and natural disasters.

Among the themes chosen for funding are global climate change, the tectonics of continental margins, prospecting of gas hydrates, variations in geomagnetism, and early warning systems for earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions.

The programme will promote collaboration between universities and other institutes, such as Germany's National Research Centres, which can also apply for funds.

Rolf Emmermann, the scientific director of the Geoforschungszentrum (GFZ) in Potsdam, Germany's largest geological sciences institute, is optimistic that what he calls the “exemplary integrative approach” of the new scheme will keep German researchers at the forefront of international Earth sciences.

The social relevance of today's Earth sciences is not in doubt, says Emmermann. “The results of our research leave their mark in many topical political discussions about climate policy or disaster management.”

In earthquake research, the GFZ is involved in developing early warning systems for some European cities in endangered regions, including Istanbul and Bucharest. Moreover, it participates in international research projects aimed at understanding the mechanisms of the tectonic processes -- including the assumed role of fluids in the Earth's crystalline crust -- that generate earthquakes.

Emmermann hopes that the interdisciplinary approach of the new programme will encourage collaboration between seismologists and engineers in setting building codes for earthquake regions.

With this in mind, the GFZ has already begun analysing the damage caused by earthquakes in Turkey and the Middle East. Earthquake experts have blamed the disastrous consequences of the recent quake in Turkey on the lack, or disregard, of such standards (see Nature 400, 803; 1996).