Universities of applied sciences receive too little research funding despite legal requirements

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Entrance to Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences (symbol image)

Photo: Friso Gentsch / picture alliance / dpa

The universities of applied science (HAW), the former universities of applied sciences (FH), have apparently received too little funding for research for years.

Of the 3.6 billion euros that the German Research Foundation (DFG) distributed to research projects in 2021, just 0.46 percent (8.8 million euros) ended up at the universities of applied sciences and universities of applied sciences.

This emerges from the response of the Federal Ministry for Education Research (BMBF) to a small inquiry from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, which SPIEGEL has received.

The FH funding amounted to 8.8 million euros last year.

In 2020, it was only 7.18 million euros - 0.38 percent of the DFG funding volume at the time.

"For the current year 2022, no final information can be given," writes FDP State Secretary Jens Brandenburg in his response to the Union's request.

However, the Federal Government and the German Research Foundation assumed “that the proportion of funding will continue to increase”.

Brandenburg refers to numerous funding programs that have been launched since 2020 and increasingly in recent months to encourage HAW to submit applications to the DFG.

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The minimum funding for the HAW in 2021 is subject to an express budgetary note from the federal government, according to which at least one percent of the federal funds must be used at the DFG for these types of universities.

"The BMBF, as the institutional donor, has accordingly obliged the DFG in a grant notification to implement this requirement from 2021," confirms Jens Brandenburg.

Further consequences and guidelines from the federal government are currently not planned.

However, Brandenburg also points out that DFG funds for the universities of applied sciences would be earmarked and transferred to the following years, "so that the funds provided for by the budget legislature can be used completely and appropriately for the promotion of HAW and FH".

him/olb