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.
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Jahn, R. Distinguished scientists back Germany's DFG…. Nature 404, 922 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35010145
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35010145