DFG President Prof. Dr. Peter Strohschneider comments on the outcome of today's decisions by the Joint Science Conference (GWK):

"The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) expressly welcomes today’s decisions by the Joint Science Conference on the future funding of the German academic research system. These commitments will further the system’s dynamic development, which has considerably increased the capabilities of science and research in this country for more than a decade and turned the German research system into one of the world's strongest and most attractive.

The continuation of the Pact for Research and Innovation is particularly important to the DFG and for university research. It provides both with indispensable planning security for funding thousands of high-calibre research projects and researchers employed within them for an even longer period of time. It also has various indirect and politically intended implications for the research system, such as support for early career researchers and gender equality in research. The continuation of the pact will also prevent further imbalance in the relationship between university and non-university research.

The DFG would like to thank all those involved in today’s decisions for acting in the interests of the research system as a whole and thus of Germany’s competitive and innovative capacity following tough negotiations. It calls upon the Chancellor and the heads of the state governments to approve these decisions at their upcoming conference in June."

Media contact:

• Marco Finetti
  DFG
  Head of Press and Public Relations
  marco.finetti@dfg.de
  Tel. +49 228 885 2230