Science, Research, Equality and Districts Authority

Authority for Science, Research, Equality and Districts of ; the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg ; - BWFGB -
State level	country
position	Supreme state authority
Headquarters	Hamburg
Authority management	Senator Katharina Fegebank President of the Authority for Science, Research, Equality and Districts State Councilor Eva Gümbel (Science, Research and Equality) State Councilor Alexander von Vogel (Districts area)
Budget volume	EUR 971.309 million (2019)
Web presence	www.hamburg.de

The Hamburg Authority for Science, Research, Equal Opportunities and Districts ( BWFGB ) is one of eleven specialist authorities of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg . The authority is based at Hamburger Strasse 37 in Barmbek-Süd .

Katharina Fegebank has been Senator and President of the Authority since April 15, 2015 , State Councilor Eva Gümbel (both Alliance 90 / Greens ).

Authority history

A separate university authority was first established in 1919 when the University of Hamburg was founded. Before that, a section for the “scientific institutions” ( botanical garden , tropical institute , colonial institute , observatory , etc.) existed in the then high school authority . In 1933, the university authorities were incorporated into the newly formed state education administration by the Nazi Senate , and even after the Second World War, responsibility for the higher education sector initially remained with the school authorities . Only in the course of the educational expansion and the establishment of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences was an authority for science and art (BWK) formed, which also included the cultural department . In December 1978 the two departments were separated and an independent authority for science and research was set up. In 2004 it was merged with the health department under the name Authority for Science and Health , but this was given up again in May 2006, whereby the science authority was given back its previous design and the old name.

With the start of the red-green coalition in Senate Scholz II , the area of equality was transferred from the judicial authority to the authority for science, research and equality in 2015 . Before that, the then Senator for Science Krista Sager was also responsible for gender equality policy from 1997 to 2001 , but she was the Senator of the then independent Senate Office for Equality .

In the course of the continuation of the red-green coalition after the 2020 general election , in 2020 in the Tschentscher II Senate responsibility for district issues was transferred from the tax authorities to the science authorities and the corresponding department was integrated into the administration.

Hamburg teaching award

The authority honors outstanding and innovative teaching achievements at the state universities of Hamburg with the Hamburg Teaching Prize every year. The Hamburg Teaching Prize has already been awarded eleven times in a row by the BWFG. The prizes are now endowed with 10,000 euros each.