As the provisional federal budget management indicates, research institutes that are primarily funded by public means are facing existential problems. According to the “Spiegel”, the federal government cannot approve new project funding until a new government has established a budget for 2025. In a survey of the Konrad Zuse research community, 23 science institutes reported a total of 150 applications that the federal government has not yet decided on. However, the institutes have ongoing costs.
“This is acutely threatening our research facilities”, warned Martin Bastian, president of the Zuse community, in a letter to the relevant ministries. The situation in the institutes is “precarious”. Around 200 jobs have fallen or are at risk. This affects experts with key knowledge, “who will irreparably be lost to the innovation process”. Even if the institutions were to receive funding again by the middle of the year, they would be missing up to 10 percent of their annual budgets, Bastian complained. Some institutes “will slide into a liquidity crisis that inevitably leads to insolvency”.
The Zuse community represents a total of around 80 institutions, including, for example, laser centers, testing facilities, or testing institutes. They receive orders from small and medium-sized enterprises that themselves do not have large research departments.