Departmental research
Under departmental research refers to the research and development activities of the federal and state ministries.
history
In Germany, this is done via its own subordinate scientific specialist authorities as well as by awarding research contracts, e.g. B. at universities , research institutes z. B. the Leibniz Association or the Fraunhofer Society .
Departmental research forms a bridge between science, society and politics. One of the main tasks is to provide scientific policy advice to the ministries . Most of the specialist authorities also provide important research-based services, some of which are stipulated by law, e.g. B. in areas such as technical infrastructure, testing, approval and regulation. Departmental research aims to gain scientific knowledge that is directly related to the fields of activity of a ministry or is a prerequisite for fulfilling one's own specialist tasks. These findings regularly serve as the basis for administrative or political decisions by the department. If the general level of knowledge is not sufficient for this, the federal institutions are primarily active with research and development tasks.
Departmental research as an independent type of applied research is characterized by the following special features: It takes up questions of politics, economy and society and is therefore normally problem-oriented and practical and is designed to be interdisciplinary due to its problem-orientation . However, depending on the question, there can also be a continuous transition to basic research.
It generates transfer knowledge and provides translation services from the scientific system to the user system (e.g. enforcement) and vice versa. She combines scientific competence that can be accessed at short notice with the ability to continuously work on long-term issues. Departmental research is usually institutionalized in the form of authorities and is therefore subject to a hierarchical organizational structure.
Germany
The Science Council has evaluated all federal government research institutions since 2004. In addition to the institution-specific publications, the results of the evaluations resulted in two overarching statements on federal departmental research that were published in 2007 and 2010 (see under web links). The Federal Government responded to the recommendations of the Science Council with several measures: In 2007 it passed the guidelines for modern departmental research and then presented an inter-departmental concept for modern departmental research, which was approved by the Federal Cabinet at the end of 2007. The evaluations of the facilities were completed in January 2010. In November 2010, a second overall opinion of the Science Council was published in the form of recommendations for profiling the institutions with departmental research tasks of the federal government.
Federal research institutions: Federal agencies, agencies and institutes
Topics that have to be dealt with continuously or for a very long time by the federal ministries led to the establishment of so-called departmental research institutions; some of them have their roots in the 19th century; they are among the oldest non-university research institutions in Germany. These more than 40 institutions (as of spring 2012), subordinate to the federal ministries and active in their business areas, work on fields from archeology to health sciences, occupational medicine, metrology , radiation protection, transport, defense to international politics and have an annual financial volume of approx . 1.4 billion euros (as of 2008). In the departmental research institutions, the research share (in addition to services and advisory tasks) is very different and lies between 10% and 90%. In some cases, the research tasks are not just focused on one department, but on several (e.g. in security technology), in other cases the tasks belong more to the scientific-technical infrastructure (e.g. in metrology).
See also
Web links
- Departmental Research in Germany (WG departmental research)
- Departmental Research in Germany - Concept for Modern Departmental Research by the Federal Government (BMBF)
- Departmental research in Switzerland
- ARAMIS information system on research, development and evaluation projects of the Swiss federal administration
- Recommendations on the role and future development of federal institutions with R&D tasks (PDF file; 1032 kB)
- Recommendations for profiling the institutions with departmental research tasks of the federal government (PDF file; 335 kB)
- Federal Report on Research and Innovation 2012