July 2003

Due to our summer holidays the next "News of the Week" will be published in the middle of August. We kindly ask for you appreciation and wish you pleasant and recreative summer holidays.

Bremer Geosciences amongst the leaders

In the recently published ranking lists of support grants from the German Research Foundation, geosciences in the county of Bremen occupy leading positions. The department of Geosciences at the University of Bremen respectively the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven received a total of 14.4 million Euros in funding between 1999 and 2001. Higher support grants for universities and independent research institutions were only awarded to the region Berlin/Potsdam. The colleagues working there received a total of 19.6 million Euros over the same period of time. After Bremen came the regions Kiel, Tübingen and Karlsruhe in positions three to five. They received 12.5 million, 11.1 million and 10.4 million Euros respectively.

If one were to leave aside the independent institutions and only compare how much funding the universities alone received then Bremen ranks a good third behind Tübingen and Karlsruhe. According to this, research at the department of geosciences, to which the DFG Research Center "Ocean Margins" is also attached, received 9.6 million Euros funding from 1999 to 2001.

Between 1999 and 2001 the German Research Foundation approved a total of more than 42,000 proposals covering a volume of 3.5 billion Euros. The grants were awarded to 142 universities and 445 independent institutions. Averaged over all subjects the University of Bremen lies at a reputable 28th position in the ranking list. Since the first ranking list of support grants was published 10 years ago the university has moved up the list by three ranks.

The complete ranking list of support grants can be viewed on the web sites of the German Research Foundation.