Germany's 2006 budget grants new funds for research
The budget of the German Ministry for Education and Research is to increase by 5.6 per cent in 2006, and Minister Annette Schavan wishes to devote the extra money to research, innovation and scientific excellence. The ministry's budget will increase to over eight billion euro under the new federal allocation. A key priority will be the funding of flagship projects in the areas of the life sciences, new technologies and environmentally-friendly sustainable development. These projects will receive 1.155 billion euro - an extra eight per cent, or 86 million euro, compared with 2005. The ministry's intention is to make what Germany is doing in these fields more visible on an international level. However, it is not only the hard sciences that are to benefit from the enlarged budget. The humanities, cultural and social sciences will receive six per cent more in funding in 2006, bringing their joint budget to 36 million euro. Other priorities include supporting gifted students at university and in vocational training and building new large-scale infrastructure for basic research in the natural sciences. The budget here will see a huge increase, rising by 28 per cent to around 94 million euro. Projects include PETRA III, a new high-brilliance synchrotron radiation source, and the European X-Ray Laser Project X-FEL. Germany's Excellence Initiative for top universities will also begin in 2006, with a budget of 142.5 million euro. In a statement on 23 February, Ms Schavan emphasised that the government expects more investment from the individual German states (Länder), and from industry. Germany will only be able to meet the EU target of investing three per cent of GDP in research if these other investors pull their weight, said a ministry statement. The country's ability to reach the target was in doubt in 2004 when investment fell to 2.48 per cent from 2.52 per cent, but according to Ms Schavan, business investment plans fro 2005 and 2006 indicate that the downward trend is likely to reverse.
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Germany