Budget

Vital investments in education and research are a top priority as we urgently need investments in the present economic crisis. They can help us overcome the crisis and emerge from it stronger and with new ideas. The Federal Government makes an important contribution towards this goal: With a total volume of €10.9 billion, the BMBF's budget for 2010 shows an increase over the budget for 2009 of €750 million, or more than 9%. Education and research have thus become firmly established in the federal budget despite today's difficult financial situation.

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Draft budget for 2010

The draft budget for 2010 includes additional investments of €750 million for education and research - a first step towards realizing the goals defined in the Coalition Agreement, which provides that the Federal Government will make an additional €12 billion available for these vitally important areas in the current legislative period. The budget of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for 2010 will thus increase by about 6.9% to a total of approximately €10.9 billion compared with the previous year.

This ensures continued funding of the Pact for Higher Education, the Initiative for Excellence, and the Pact for Research and Innovation. Between 2011 and 2013, the Federal Government will provide additional funding of roughly €2.5 billion for these central initiatives. Funding for the Higher Education Pact will increase by 33% to €509 million next year; the money will specifically be spent to create new study places.

Federal funds made available to strengthen lifelong learning will increase by 54% to €215 million. Expenditure on projects to modernize and strengthen vocational training will almost double (i.e. they will increase by roughly 95%) and reach a record level of €190 million. These funds will be used among other things to offer improved career orientation to pupils from grade 7 and to modernize intercompany training centres.

Furthermore, the budget provides a financial basis for setting new directions at all levels to ensure the future viability of the education system. Early childhood education and language tuition as well as individual support for low-achievers will be expanded. Training assistance under the BAföG law will be improved and a national scholarship programme introduced to help particularly young people from non-academic families enter university. The Federal Government is committed to improving academic teaching, student-teacher ratios and mobility and wants to agree a whole set of Bologna mobility and quality measures with the Länder.

The High-Tech Strategy will be developed further to encourage more innovation in sunrise sectors. Project funding for such promising areas as life sciences, climate, environment and new technologies will increase by almost 13% over the previous year to a total of approximately €1.6 billion.

The amount provided for projects in the life sciences will increase by approximately 10% to almost half a billion euros. In the area of climate and energy, which will see an increase by roughly 7% to €380 million, and in the area of new technologies, funding for innovative battery technologies will be retained at a level that is likely to promote electric mobility and enhance climate protection. Project funding for new technologies will increase by roughly 14% to over €700 million. Strengthening top-class research and innovation is the objective of a funding priority for the East German Länder. An additional €15 million will be provided so that the funding volume of this area will increase to €137 million. Forward-looking projects in the East German Länder will also receive considerable amounts from other BMBF funding programmes.

The 2009 Budget

The Federal Government will considerably increase its expenditure on education and research next year, too: The budget of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will grow to a total of 10.204 billion euros in 2009.

The Federal Government adopted the Six Billion Euro programme for Research and Development (R&D) as well as the High-Tech Strategy for Germany at the beginning of the legislative period. As in the 2008 budget, expenditure on research and development will continue to rise considerably next year: The BMBF budget for 2009 and the following years provides for an additional 300 million euros p.a. for R&D compared with previous financial plans. These additional funds will be used mainly for the following areas:

• research for an ageing society and health research,
• strengthening R&D capacities in small and medium-sized enterprises by means of the "SME innovative" funding initiative,
• climate and energy research,
• strengthening international research cooperation

Moreover, further funds of 185 million euros will be made available for 2009 within the framework of the Innovation and Investment Programme for Education and Research.

All in all, BMBF project funding will rise by 13.5 percent compared with 2008 to about 3.5 billion euros. Under the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation, the Federal Government is continuing its efforts to modernize the structure and strengthen the international competitiveness of the German research environment. This also includes inter alia the establishment of a German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases and the launch of the National Academy of Sciences. Altogether, about 3.9 billion euros are available for funding large-scale research institutions.

Funding will be raised by about 136 million euros to over 1.4 billion euros in order to finance the increase in BAföG adopted by the Federal Government and at the same time increase the number of students receiving grants. The increase in grants under the 22nd Amendment to the Federal Training Assistance Act will also be implemented for the Upgrading Training Assistance Act and for grants for the promotion of the gifted. Furthermore, additional funds of 30 million euros will already allow increased financial assistance for "Meister" trainees under the Upgrading Training Assistance Act and for the award of scholarships to upgrade training as early as 2009. These scholarships will provide talented trainees in vocational education with an additional incentive to take up studies and to thus obtain further qualifications.

The 2008 Budget

The budget for 2008 takes full advantage of the economic upsurge and the opportunities it provides for research and development. In addition to the resources earmarked for the Six Billion Euro Programme, a further 220 million euros will be available for research and development (R&D). With the increase in funds set out in the budget, the Federal Government is making a major contribution towards its goal of spending 3% of GDP on R&D by 2010. The BMBF alone will raise its spending on research and development by 580 million euros compared with 2007.

This increase means that the BMBF can set new thematic priorities:

• Over 336 million euros are available for climate, ecological and energy research as part of the High-Tech Strategy for Climate Protection. This is an increase of 47.2 million euros (or 16%) compared with 2007. The key areas of funding will be environmental technologies and the "Research on Climate Change" initiative, an energy research programme focusing on basic research.
• In 2008, over 400 million euros will be available for life sciences, with special emphasis on pharmaceutical research and medical technology - 46 million euros (or 13%) more than in 2007.
• According to the draft, 76 million euros will be available in 2008 for new instruments for the transfer of knowledge and technology, including the Research Bonus, the top-class cluster competition, and the planned Research Bonus II for research institutions that serve the public good. This amount will increase to 120 million euros by 2011.

Outside the BMBF's budget (Departmental Budget 30), funds are available for the all-day school programme (518 million euros) and the BAföG grants provided by the KfW (Bank for Reconstruction and Development) (527 million euros).

The budget available to the BMBF for the basic funding of institutions will be around 3.6 billion euros; this includes funds for the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation. The amount earmarked for basic research in the natural sciences has been raised to 178.4 million euros - 16.3% more than in 2007. This budget area includes the Federal Government's share of funding for the XFEL and FAIR. projects

In addition, a new funding programme will be created to promote equal opportunities for female engineers and natural scientists, among other new programmes. A total of 8.5 million euros will be available for this purpose in 2008. An additional 11 million euros will be made available for interdisciplinary measures in the field of international cooperation, especially in the research sector.

Higher Education Pact 2020

According to the agreement reached by the heads of the Federal and Länder governments on 20 August 2007, the Higher Education Pact 2020 includes a programme for the admission of new university entrants and a programme for funding one-off payments for research projects supported by the German Research Association (DFG). As agreed, 242 million euros will be available for this purpose in 2008; the resources needed for the higher education pact are also taken into account in the financial planning period beyond 2008. Approximately 1,294 million euros will be available up to 2010.

BAföG

Expenditure for BAföG will increase by about 167 million euros in 2008, to 1.297 million euros. This will enable a significant increase in the grant parameters - which have not been changed since 2001 - starting during the winter semester of the 2008/2009 academic year

The BMBF and its financing tasks

The BMBF finances numerous institutions and projects in education and research, either alone or in conjunction with the Länder.

According to the latest available statistics from the Federal Statistical office for 2005, the Federal Government and the Länder spent a total of approximately 17.2 billion euros on research and development (R&D), whereas companies spent 38.2 billion euros. The state thus financed a total of 31% of all R&D expenditure in Germany. In 2005, a total of 5.8 billion euros of state research expenditure went to the institutional funding of research organizations which are jointly financed by the Federal Government and the Länder. The German Research Association, which predominantly finances research at universities, received additional funds. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in 2005:

• The German Research Association (DFG) received 1.4 billion euros;
• The centres of the Hermann von Helmholtz Association (HGF) received 2.5 billion euros;
• The Max Planck Society (MPG) received 1.2 billion euros;
• The Fraunhofer Society (FhG) received 1.3 billion euros;
• The Leibniz Association's institutions received 0.8 billion euros, and
• The Academies received 0.1 billion euros

With 0.9 billion euros, the public research institutions of the Federal Government, the Länder, and the local governments received a share of 11.1% of total expenditure on non-university research and development institutions.

The BMBF alone finances more than two thirds of this sum, with the share of federal and Länder funding varying from institution to institution. Depending on the type of institution, the share of funding provided by the Länder is either divided up between the participating Länder alone or between all the Länder according to an established formula (the Königstein formula). (Source: Research and Innovation in Germany 2005)

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