Sir

Your recent News report “German research agency stifles creativity” (Nature 404, 217; 2000) gives a negative and incorrect impression of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Nature claims that DFG's inability to assess novel research areas and interdisciplinary research areas threatens career opportunities, especially for young researchers. The cases mentioned in the Nature report, however, are neither representative nor described in an unbiased manner.

Typically, the reviewing process of the DFG takes less than six months and involves a large number of scientists from foreign and German institutions and from senior as well as junior ranks. Every attempt is made to support the best and the most innovative scientific proposals. In fact, time and again high-risk proposals are funded that, for example, would have no better chance of support from the US National Institutes of Health.

Of course, no system is free of errors, and occasional undeserved negative judgements may be made. However, continual efforts are made to improve the system. Overall, we are impressed by the flexibility of the DFG, its unbiased support for creative, high-quality research and its programmes for young scientists and interdisciplinary research even at times when its budget is tight.

At this juncture, our most urgent concern is to convince politicians to increase funding to the DFG significantly. This is particularly important for the support of young scientists. We are very proud of the DFG as a self-governing body of the German scientific community and we believe it to be, by any standards, one of the best scientific funding agencies.

Other signatories of this letter:

August Böck Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Klaus M. Breiner Emmy-Noether-Fellow, ETH Zürich

Karin D. Breunig Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Herman Bujard Universität Heidelberg

José Campos-Ortega Universität zu Köln

Detlev Ganten Max-Delbrück-Zentum, Berlin-Buch

Ingrid Grummt Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg

Peter Gruss Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie, Göttingen

Christo Goridis CNRS, Marseille

Robert Huber Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, München

Michael Hoch Gerhard-Hess-Fellow, Universität Bonn

Herbert Jäckle Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie, Göttingen

Regine Kahmann Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Claudia Koch-Brandt Universität Mainz

Maria Leptin Universität zu Köln

Hartmut Michel Max-Planck-Institut für Biophysik, Frankfurt

Angelika Noegel Universität zu Köln

Erwin Neher Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie, Göttingen

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Max-Planck-Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie, Tübingen

Nikolaus Pfanner Universität Freiburg

Konrad Sandhoff Universität Bonn

Astrid Schoen Heisenberg fellow, Universität Würzburg

Petra Schwille Biofuture junior group, Göttingen

Kai Simons Max-Planck-Institut für molekulare Zellbiologie und Genetik, Dresden

Eberhart Zrenner Universität Tübingen

Signed on behalf of 1,164 other biomedical scientists. The full list of names is available from R. J.