The Research Campuses
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding nine research campuses, working in different disciplines and located all over Germany.
The partners on the research campuses conduct trans- and interdisciplinary research under one roof, ranging from basic research to work on the brink of competitive development. The research campuses all pursue the goal of developing comprehensive and sustainable solutions to complex research questions whilst at the same time also considering topics such as societal acceptance or training young scientists.
Research campuses have three main characteristics in line with the aims of the funding initiative:
- They pool commercial and public research competencies and/or activities on a single site, if possible the campus of a higher education or research institution (proximity, “industry on campus”, “under one roof”).
- They focus on new topics with a medium to long-term perspective in the joint interest of science and industry and work on these topics in accordance with their specific research profiles or on the basis of a specifically established research programme.
- They are each supported by a binding public-private partnership based on cooperation agreements, agreements on dealing with intellectual property and significant funding from the partners involved, the level of which depends on the BMBF’s project funding.
Furthermore, the research campuses pursue complementary goals such as providing initial and continuing training and also address questions of societal acceptance. The strategies of the research campuses also make provision for the development and expansion of national and international networking activities.
