Research Funding

Research Funding

A successful project requires planning, development and implementation.

The Research Funding Department supports the MDC scientists in identifying funding opportunities and applying for external grants. The Research Funding Department is also responsible for the entire financial and administrative grant implementation. The grants are competitively acquired through a rigorous international selection process.

The principal aims of the Research Funding Department are:

  • locating, collecting and distributing information on relevant funding sources, both within Germany and internationally
  • providing guidance, advice and suggestions on proposal writing
  • offering strategic, administrative and financial services to scientists at all steps of a grant lifecycle
  • mediating (together with the legal department) the negotiation and authorization of the contractual relationship with the funding sources
  • assisting in various aspects of grants’ implementation (e.g. adherence to timetables, reporting, project extension)
  • supporting the MDC directorate and other MDC stakeholders by providing statistics and analysing the funding tendencies of the MDC
  • liaising with other national and international research funding network members (i.e. Helmholtz EU Liaison Officers, Helmholtz Brussels Office, EU-Life Community, EU National Contact Points and KoWi)
  • supporting the strategic implementation of new funding directions at the MDC

The top sources providing external research grant support are the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the European Union (EU) as well as various national and international foundations (i.e. Leducq Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) and industry. The MDC additionally secures funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In 2020, MDC researchers were active in over 340 externally funded research projects with totalling funds of over €30 million.