Helmholtz Association

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren
PredecessorArbeitsgemeinschaft der Großforschungseinrichtungen (AGF)
Established1995; 29 years ago (1995)
TypeRegistered association
HeadquartersBonn and Berlin
President
Otmar Wiestler
Budget (2020)
€5.8 billion[1]
Employees
42,000 (2020)[1]
Websitewww.helmholtz.de/en/ Edit this at Wikidata

The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (German: Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren) is the largest scientific organisation in Germany. It is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers. The official mission of the Association is "solving the grand challenges of science, society and industry". Scientists at Helmholtz therefore focus research on complex systems which affect human life and the environment. The namesake of the association is the German physiologist and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz.[2]

The annual budget of the Helmholtz Association amounts to €5.8 billion, of which about 70% is raised from public funds. The remaining 30% of the budget is acquired by the 19 individual Helmholtz Centres in the form of contract funding. The public funds are provided by the federal government (90%) and the rest by the States of Germany (10%).[2][1]

The Helmholtz Association was ranked #6 in 2022 by the Nature Index, which measures the largest contributors to papers published in 82 leading journals.[3][4][5]

  1. ^ a b c "Facts and Figures". Helmholtz Association. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  2. ^ a b Helmholtz Association – About Us. retrieved 24-May-2012.
  3. ^ "Ten institutions that dominated science in 2015". 20 April 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
  4. ^ "10 institutions that dominated science in 2017". 12 June 2018. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
  5. ^ "2022 tables: Institutions". Retrieved 15 February 2023.