For a staggering fourth time in a row, the Bremen Geo-Sciences have occupied number one place at the top of the funding rankings compiled by the DFG [German Research Foundation] – and there is a wide gap before second place. They were allocated DFG funding in excess of 36 million euros, more than twice as much as the institution in second place. The area of Social Sciences at the University of Bremen is also ahead of all others in Germany, having received DFG funding in an amount of 14.5 million.
All told, the University has reason to be very happy with its performance in the recently published DFG Funding Atlas: Of the 40 universities that make up the rankings the University of Bremen is on place number 27. Although this means it has slid down 6 places, with a funding amount totalling 100 million euros (2012: 117 million) it is still granted 30 percent more DFG funding than the average that could be expected for a university of its size.
“Our Bremen scholars and scientists do excellent research”, says University Rector, Professor Bernd Scholz-Reiter with some pride. “It comes as no real surprise that we slid a little down the list between 2011 and 2013: The same period saw several large DFG-funded projects at our University come to a close. Moreover, the University’s Institutional Strategy that was successful in the Excellence Initiative was only just beginning to gather full momentum when the period covered by the rankings ended.” It is also interesting to see that on a per capita basis, i.e. the amount of funding spread over the number of professors, the University is even further ahead of the field.
University profile sharpened by its high-profile research areas
The Funding Atlas shows that the University’s high profile research areas in turn sharpen its overall profile. DFG funding for the areas of the Humanities and Social Sciences amounting to 21.7 million euros puts the University of Bremen on place sixteen. And here the ratio of funding to the number of professors puts Bremen researchers on place ten. In the area of Social and Behavioral Sciences the University is number 5, putting it in front of all other German universities in the field of Social Sciences.
In the area of natural sciences the University occupies ninth place, and per professor it is on place number 5. Here, the subject area Geo Sciences is number one in a double sense – both in absolute terms, as well as the amount of funding per professor.
The Bremen engineering sciences are placed at number 16. Again, according to funding per professor they move up to place 11.
As a mid-sized institution, Bremen is among the leaders Germany wide
The DFG publishes the Funding Atlas every three years. Over the past twenty years, the University of Bremen has moved up five places, from 32 to 27 – and this measured by the absolute amount of funding granted by the DFG. In this respect one should remember that as a rule, the larger the university, the more funding it can be expected to receive: Measured against other German universities, though, the University of Bremen is only a mid-sized institution. On top of this, it does not have a medical faculty, which would normally attract large amounts of third-party funding. In view of all this, the University’s relatively high ranking in absolute terms is really quite remarkable.
If you would like to have more information on this topic, please contact:
University of Bremen
Prof.Dr.-Ing. Kurosch Rezwan
Vice Rector for Research and Young Academics
Phone: +49 421/218-60021
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