Institutes have been restructured
In 2008, the federal departmental research institutes have been restructured in order to
make them ‘fit for the future’ (BMELV 2008) and to reduce costs (interview, non-ministry)
(cf. Section 2.1). As a consequence the existing institutes have been merged along four
pillars:
crop
production,
animal
husbandry,
nutrition and rural development/economy/forestry.
The newly constituted institutes received from then on
lump sums and were free in their human resources decisions. The process was
accompanied by a considerable reduction of staff which is now nearly finished (BMEL,
interview). The initial starting point for restructuring was the evaluation of agricultural
sciences and the evaluation of federal research institutes of the Science Council.
Other restructuring processes took place at Länder level. Often these initiatives are
motivated by cutting costs and may comprise cutting down global households, reduction
of number of faculties etc.
Infrastructure regulations currently differ between universities and federal research
organisations. With the ‘Freedom of Science Act’ (Wissenschaftsfreiheitsgesetz) at the end
of 2012, universities are free to plan and carry out investments in infrastructure (cf. Section
2.3). Federal research organizations are supposed to have a similar act in the next years,
but currently are dependent on ministry decisions on infrastructure – and thus have to
negotiate annually both the household and infrastructure funding.
In general, the heterogeneous agricultural research landscape in Germany seems to
consolidate. The Germany Agricultural Alliance (DAFA) was founded for example, and has
developed several strategies (on aquaculture, protein, lifestock farming) (,
, DBV, interview).
EU Forecast
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