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Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP)
Photo: Andreas Gora/POOL/EPA
In view of rising prices for electricity and gas, the operation of some research facilities may be at risk.
Bio databases, large research facilities, high-performance computers, but also animal houses and greenhouses are considered to be power guzzlers.
The cost increases could become an existential problem for them.
»The damage caused by one winter can have serious consequences for years and decades.
This must be averted at all costs,” writes the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag in a current motion.
Among other things, she calls for the federal government to work with the federal states to set up a "relief package for science" and also set up an emergency fund, "under which targeted aid for science can be created and made available at short notice."
Declare research institutions »protected customers«
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The previous "inaction" by Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) is "unacceptable and a heavy burden for the current fight against the crisis," says the motion that the Bundestag debated this Thursday.
In addition, the Federal Network Agency should include research institutions among the protected customers in the future.
Schools and kindergartens, for example, are already part of it.
Stark-Watzinger, on the other hand, even called for a rescue package for cutting-edge research in the "Handelsblatt".
"Because research is the key to overcoming the current and future crises as well as to growth and prosperity," the minister is quoted as saying.
According to the "Handelsblatt", the electricity costs of the four major German research institutions - Fraunhofer Society, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association and Helmholtz Association - amounted to a total of 324 million euros, a large part of which was attributable to electricity.
Weakening of science has negative consequences
The Alliance of Science Organisations, an association of the most important research institutions in Germany, points out in a statement that the research institutions have long since begun to "make their contribution to overcoming the situation" through prioritization and austerity measures.
A weakening of the science system, as is foreseeable due to the current energy crisis - especially in combination with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and cost increases in many areas - will have negative consequences, "with lasting and sometimes irreversible effects".
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