FAU reaches top ten

Latest DFG Funding Atlas confirms FAU’s strength in research

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) is one of Germany’s most successful universities when it comes to raising funding for research. This fact was confirmed by the DFG Funding Atlas recently published by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In the ranking, FAU takes tenth place and ranks highest (next to HU Berlin) among those universities which have not yet received any funding from the third funding line of the Excellence Initiative. “This result proves that FAU, as one of Germany’s strongest research universities, can repeatedly hold its own in the competition for scarce funding resources. According to the DFG Ranking, our university has been among the top ten in Germany since 1996,” remarks FAU’s President, Prof. Dr. Karl-Dieter Grüske. “This is an immense benefit to our students as well.”

Every three years, the DFG publishes a list of the 40 universities in Germany which received the most funding from the Research Foundation. The recently published ranking covers the period from 2008 to 2010. During those years, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg succeeded in gaining funding of 159.1 million euros from the DFG in a highly competitive process. The funding was raised by the individual disciplines as follows: 58.6 million euros in engineering sciences, 55.2 million euros in life sciences, 37.6 million euros in natural sciences and 7.6 million euros in the humanities.

In the ranking of individual subjects, FAU Chemistry scored a top position with FAU scientists raising 20.6 million euros between 2008 and 2010. This means that on a national level, FAU Chemistry was very close to first place.  Further top results include process engineering (Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, 7.5 million euros, rank two), mechanical engineering (20.6 million, rank four) and medicine (45.2 million euros, rank 10). FAU Engineering Sciences were also highly successful reaching eighth rank in the ranking of single disciplines and fifth rank in the ranking of funding per professor. Moreover, excellent results were achieved by the natural sciences (rank 13) and the life sciences (rank 14).

In addition to the basic funding by the respective German federal states, researchers can raise funding from the German state and from industry, which is referred to as third-party funding. The DFG provides the majority of these funding resources. The grants are distributed in a complex evaluation process with the universities in tight competition. The amount of funding raised by a university constitutes an important indicator of the quality of their research. For this reason, the DFG Funding Ranking – in contrast to numerous other rankings – is considered a reliable indicator of a university’s strength in research in academic circles This also benefits students, by assuring the quality of research-based teaching.

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uni | media service | news No. 108/2012 on 24.5.2012