On 16 July 2024, representatives of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF) held a special online event for the institutional support of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (NRFU).

The event was attended by representatives of the Directorate of the NRFU, as well as members of the NRFU’s Scientific Council and Supervisory Board. Representatives of the BMBF’s departments for coordination of innovation and transfer policy, future research and innovation strategy; political issues, digitalisation and data transfer; coordination of basic education and research, as well as specialists from the DLR Project Management Agency of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR Projektträger) were among the speakers.

The event was organised to provide an overview of the German research and development funding system, as well as to share experiences and best practices in grant funding for research projects.

The event addressed a number of important issues, such as:

• Overview of the German research landscape: BMBF’s representatives provided detailed information on the structure and functioning of German research institutions, as well as the main areas of research funded at the state level.
• Systemic and strategic principles of federal funding allocation: the principles and mechanisms for allocating funding to different research institutions and research projects were presented.
• Setting priorities for different types of research: the criteria and methods for determining the priority areas of research that receive financial support were discussed, taking into account both national and global challenges.
• Specifics of developing programmes and calls: the participants learned about the processes of developing and implementing funding programmes, as well as organising calls for research and innovation projects.
• Features of project selection, financing, monitoring and reporting: approaches to selecting the best projects, mechanisms for financing them, as well as monitoring and reporting systems to ensure the effective use of funds were presented.

Development of the joint DFG-NRFU call

In addition, representatives of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) joined the event. They provided detailed information on the structure and mission of the institution, funding programmes, project evaluation procedures, and DFG activities to support Ukraine.

As a result of the negotiations and consultations held between the representatives of the NRFU and the DFG in recent months, the process of developing the terms of the joint DFG-NRFU call with the financial support of the DFG has already started. Such strengthening of cooperation requires a detailed study of legal and regulatory requirements, a deep understanding and coordination of work processes at all levels, so the information presented today was extremely useful for us.

We sincerely thank our partners from Germany for the opportunity to share best practices, as well as for their unconditional support and willingness to cooperate to preserve and develop research potential of Ukraine.