German R&D hotspots ranked

Nieuws | de redactie

23 april 2012 | Which German universities and institutes attracts the international research elite? A new ranking by the Humboldt Foundation shows that Berlin, Munich and Max Planck Society lead the way.

The renowned Humboldt Foundation created a ranking of German universities and institutesthat attract the greatest number of international research talents.Between 2007 and 2011, over 6,082 scientists came to conductresearch in Germany. 75% of them worked at universities while therest was drawn to other research organizations.

In the university category, Freie Universität Berlin,Humboldt-Universität Berlin and Universität München score the top 3ranks. Each of them attracted over 260 researchers of which over 40were award winning scientists.

Max Planck Society leading

For non-university research organizations, theFritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society in Berlin faresbest (68 scientists) followed by the Max Planck Institute ofColloids and Interfaces in Potsdam (50) and the Max PlanckInstitute for Polymer Research in Mainz (42). This underlines theoutstanding reputation of institutes that are part of the renownedMax Planck Society.

The ranking also points out in which disciplines certainuniversities are deemed to be the crème de la crème. For Humanitiesand Social Sciences again Freie Universität Berlin tops of theranking (184). For Life Sciences Universität Göttingen (34) leadsin absolute numbers while Freie Universität Berlin (30) winsweighted by the size of its faculty. In Natural SciencesUniversität München (110) leads in absolute and UniversitätRegensburg (50) in relative terms. Finally, the disciplineEngineering Sciences is especially popular at the TechnischeUniversität Darmstadt (49).