German Universities in the DFG Ranking

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is Germany's central autonomous research funding organization. The DFG's main task is to promote research in all its forms and disciplines at German universities and non-university research institutions by funding projects developed by the academic community itself in the field of knowledge-driven research. The selection of the projects to be funded is based on an anonymous peer review process by so-called DFG reviewers - who usually include the most experienced and renowned professors of the respective subject.  

In 2021, the DFG funded a good 31,600 projects with an annual grant total of 3.6 billion euros, which is mainly provided by the German Federal Government (69%) and the states of Germany (30%). As the largest research promotion agency in Europe, the DFG plays a decisive regulatory role in German research. Whether you want to work as an archaeologist on a dig in Egypt or you are a physicist who wants to test new theories (did we hear Einstein?), then the DFG would be able to finance both the purchase of expensive instruments and your travel expenses as a researcher to attend conferences or meet with experts in the field. Finally, in addition to its headquarters in Bonn, the DFG has offices in China, Japan, India, Russia, North America and Latin America, making it quite influential and well-linked internationally as well.

Long answer: the DFG Ranking uses the “Funding Atlas” system, a system of key figures that collects its data from the funding bodies instead of the funding recipients. Thus, the higher education institutions documented in the rankings do not face the same burden of providing data as most other ranking and indicator systems. Another feature of the approach that increases its credibility is the standardized definitions it employs, so there are no errors arising from the different data management of the institutions included in the report. As a result of the "Core Data Set Research" initiative of the German Council for Science and Humanities, there is a growing recognition that research information recorded according to fixed standards can ease the burden of processing the most diverse data requests. In October 2020, the German Council for Science and Humanities presented a proposal to further advance the initiative, now named "KDSF - German Research Information Standard". The German Research Information Council (KFiD) will provide the necessary support for it.

DFG third-party funding is one of the most important research funds for German universities. It is applied for and approved strictly on the basis of research level, and therefore it is a good measure of the overall research strength of a university.

The DFG ranking reflects the research strength of a university in the field of top-level research - but it does not contain any statements, e.g., about the quality of teaching, the level of application or the situation of students. Due to the methodology of the ranking, the Funding Atlas only reflects a small selection of the German higher education landscape: namely, predominantly the large (research) universities. Universities of Applied Sciences, Academies of Music and Art Colleges are not included - although the DFG also offers funding programs for them.

Here is the list of the German Universities with the highest DFG awards for 2017 to 2019 (overall):

1. München LMU

2. München TU 

3. Heidelberg U

4. Aachen RWTH

5. Dresden TU

6. Berlin FU

7. Tübingen U

8. Köln U

9. Freiburg U

10. Erlangen-Nürnberg U