Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
| Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren e.V. | |
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| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2001 |
| Preceding agency |
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| Headquarters | Bonn and Berlin |
| Employees | 37148 |
| Annual budget | 3.95 billion Euro (2.69 core and 1.26 third-party funding) |
| Agency executive | |
| Website | www.helmholtz.de |
The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (German: Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren) is the largest scientific organisation in Germany. It is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers. The official mission of the Association is "solving the grand challenges of science, society and industry". Scientists at Helmholtz therefore focus research on complex systems which affect human life and the environment. The namesake of the association is the German physiologist and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz.
The annual budget of the Helmholtz Association amounts to more than 3.4 billion euros, of which about 70% is raised from public funds. The remaining 30% of the budget is acquired by the 18 individual Helmholtz Centres in the form of contract funding. The public funds are provided by the federal government (90%) and the rest by the States of Germany (10%).
Members of the Helmholtz Association are:
The works of the centres are categorised into programmes, which are divided into six research groups. The Helmholtz centres are grouped according to which research group they belong to:
Eight of the above-mentioned Helmholtz centers are part of the Helmholtz Climate Initiative Regional Climate (in German: Regionale Klimainitiative) REKLIM in order to tackle the interactions between atmosphere, sea ice, ocean and land surfaces. These interactions determine the climate of the Earth. Detailed observations and process studies are combined within the initiative. For the funding period 2009-2013 the REKLIM-initiative has a budget of 32.2 million Euro. In this funding period, the program is divided into seven topics, each of the topics is organized in various work-packages.
In the second funding period (2011-2015), three additional topics have been added.
Note: Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe is often abbreviated as FZK, although this violates the rights of Feuerverzinkerei FZK Karlsruhe.
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