The government must save in order to present a constitutional budget. However, there are problems with funding programs and the control of our own research institutions.
The Federal Ministry of Research is funding more than 21,000 projects with 4.6 billion euros and is paying an additional four billion euros for universities.
The Federal Audit Office and the Taxpayers' Association criticize a lack of performance controls and insufficient use of the federal government's majorities in controlling its companies such as Fraunhofer or Max Planck.
A Freshfields report recommends that the federal government increase its influence on research institutions and attach conditions to funding to ensure the proper use of the funds.
Berlin. The university town of Oldenburg can look forward to money from the federal capital. The Federal Ministry of Research will provide three million euros next year so that an “innovation quarter” can be created on the site of the old meat factory. There, university and dual education, basic and application-oriented research as well as companies and start-ups will come together under one roof. The city speaks of a “lighthouse project”.
For the Republic's taxpayers, however, the question arises as to why they should co-finance the urban development measure for several years with a total of 35 million euros. In the future, two research institutions will also set up branches on the site, which will receive a lot of money from the federal government. But: isn't that support enough?
The “Icon”, as the project is called, is just one of many projects in the research budget. The House of Minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) is supporting more than 21,000 projects with 4.6 billion euros, as the Federal Audit Office has determined. In addition, there are four billion euros for “specific university funding”, although universities are the responsibility of the states.
From the auditor's point of view, everything needs to be examined. Bär defends the planning: She considers the budget planning to be “very, very serious”. Even more: “I think that I have the most serious of all serious officials in my house.”
They will be able to have more than 22 billion euros at their disposal next year, plus three billion euros from the federal government's special funds. At the same time, the house has to save more than 600 million euros. The minister's hope: money that has already been reserved will not be needed. This applies, for example, to the federally funded universities of excellence or to research buildings, as she recently announced. “It’s not nice.”
Where does it make sense to put the red pencil? Where would it be a mistake? From the auditors' perspective, the ministry hardly provides any answers to these questions. Success checks rarely take place. “It has fatal consequences if spending decisions are not made consistently based on needs, efficiency and impact,” warns the President of the Taxpayers’ Association, Reiner Holznagel.
The auditors not only criticize that the ministry is too careless with the tax money entrusted to it. They also complain that the federal government does not properly monitor its own companies. This amounts to 8.9 billion euros, almost half of the budget. The money will go to, among others, the Fraunhofer and Max Planck Society as well as the centers of the Helmholtz and Leibniz Associations.
The auditors' criticism: The federal government finances the majority of the institutions, but does not use its majority to ensure that the money is used efficiently. For example, the articles of association of recently founded institutions “provide for consensual decision-making for a large number of decisions”.
The approach has a tradition. The consequences could be viewed in the summer at the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (Cispa) in Saarbrücken. There, the managing director was able to operate without a care in the world for years. Not only did he receive an unusually high salary for the smallest of the 18 Helmholtz centers, but he also worked intensively with Chinese scientists in sensitive areas. Warnings to ensure research security obviously went unheard.
Like all Helmholtz centers, the federal government finances 90 percent of Cispa, with the respective federal state contributing the rest. Nevertheless, the partnership agreement states: “Resolutions of the shareholders’ meeting require unanimity.”
Because Saarland had great hope in Cispa, the prime ministers supported the leader wherever they could. The federal government was also unable to assert itself on the supervisory board. As it is said in shareholder circles, the managing director was allowed to appoint the controllers from science and business himself. The federal government's criticism of security problems did not find a majority. The critical representative of the federal government was not even elected chairwoman.
The ministry has now taken action on Cispa and is looking for a new managing director and new supervisory board members. The articles of association were also changed at the beginning of September - but not the unanimity principle criticized by the auditors.
This is all the more surprising because the ministry has had a report from the business law firm Freshfields since March. In it, four lawyers were commissioned by the Ministry of Research to examine how the federal government can better supervise its institutions. The 300-page document is available to Handelsblatt.
The state, one concludes, has “a significant share of responsibility” for the success and “the proper use of state resources”. It therefore makes sense to “tend to strive for greater state influence”. For research institutions in the form of a GmbH, the “design sovereignty” arises via the partnership agreement.
Since the Max Planck and Fraunhofer Society are organized as associations, the federal government cannot exert influence through its statutes and does not have a majority as a member. But the federal government can set conditions before it promises funding, Freshfields concludes.
In any case, the exercise of control does not affect the constitutionally protected freedom of science. This refers more to the “purpose” and “mission” of the research institutions, not to the control and management structures.
The federal government is currently negotiating new contracts with the research institutions. It's about how much money they should receive from 2030, given the long-term decline in research budgets, and what conditions they have to meet for this. So far, the ministry has shown itself to be generous: it has promised the institutions money for ten years, plus an annual increase of three percent.
