The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany's main funding agency, is symbiotically embedded in the German scientific community. Its referees, who decide which research to fund, are elected every four years in a process led by scientific societies and involving all tenured researchers.

This system means that researchers by and large have confidence in 'their' agency. But it has not kept pace with the development of science. The DFG senate therefore agreed this week on a reform, which — if approved by the general assembly in July — will strengthen the initiative of the DFG's programme managers and bring additional expertise to the reviewing process.

Predictably, there is friction. Some interpret the move as a turn away from democratic ideals, or a presumptuous attempt to increase the power of the DFG's bureaucratic machinery. But such responses are misplaced. The 650 elected referees cannot cope with the growing complexity of science, nor with the 20,000 or so grant applications every year. Reviewing procedures take too long, interdisciplinarity gets short shrift, and unconventional or risky projects have little chance of funding.

In recent years the DFG has called in a growing number of additional experts, both from Germany and from abroad, to support the reviewing process. In future, if the new proposals are approved, this will become the rule. The DFG's programme managers, who are respected scientists themselves, work cheek-by-jowl with the scientific community and tend to be good at overseeing developments in fast-moving fields. The DFG's elected referees will still have the final say, and will be able to scrutinize the administrators' choice of reviewers.

In reviewing its processes, the DFG also hopes to create an additional bottom-up stimulus to its funding priorities. The reform should bring the agency closer to common international standards. It will hardly revolutionize the German science system, but it is perhaps a long-awaited sign that the system is becoming more dynamic, and more accepting of new scientific ideas. The quality of science, and Germany's attractiveness to foreign scientists, can only benefit. The DFG has shown that it is willing to shift. Its general assembly and the community at large should welcome the changes.