munich

Germany's 16 Länder (states) say they want to cut down considerably on the five per cent increase in next year's budget that has been promised to the main basic research organizations, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Max Planck Society (MPS).

The DFG and MPS are jointly funded by the federal government and the Länder. A recent report from the German Press Agency quotes an unpublished agreement drawn up by the Länder ministers of finance to limit the budget increase to two per cent in 2000. The agreement also says that budgets should be negotiated annually in future, rather than guaranteeing fixed mid-term increases.

If approved by the Länder this month, the plan could hinder implementation of the recommendations of an external committee that evaluated internal procedures of the MPS and DFG (see Nature 399, 395; 396; 1999). The committee said that a guaranteed mid-term financial framework should be maintained to allow reforms to be made. But the federal government is unlikely to block a cost-cutting Länder agreement at a time when the federal budgets for 2000 are to be reduced by 7.4 per cent.