Generous grants to woo foreign stars

Germany is offering top foreign scientists fellowships of up to 30 per cent higher than the normal rate to conduct their research at German universities and research institutes.

The Alexander von Humboldt (AVH) Foundation, the country's main sponsorship body for foreign scientists, has raised its grants to up to €3,000 (£1,900) a month, tax free, to lure the best brains.

Wolfgang Frühwald, president of the foundation, said this would secure Germany's integration into international research. "Money of that order means we will attract the best candidates. Even compared with the US, the financial support is high enough to ensure that Germany will remain financially attractive for the future international science elite."

The foundation operates strict criteria for grants. Its fellows are usually under 35 years of age, have a PhD and have published in international journals. Awards are made on merit. No one country's scientists are given preference.

Last year, Chinese scientists attracted the largest amount of fellowships (165), followed by Indians (134), Russian Federation scientists (1), Americans (117) and Japanese (68). Spanish scientists were the most strongly represented among western European AVH fellows. There were 26 Britons.

Foreign scientists decide at which German institute they would like to conduct their research, and the foundation publishes an annual league table of the most popular destinations.

Professor Frühwald said this revealed which German universities were competing in the international premier league. Scientists voted with their feet and went where they would find the best working conditions, he said.

Half of the nearly 3,000 fellows who have been funded since 1997 are concentrated in 10 per cent of locations.

Munich is the most popular research address: Munich Technical University attracted the most visiting scholars (116), closely followed by it neighbour Munich University (115).

Berlin universities also dominate the top of the league, while the traditional university cities of Heidelberg, Tübingen, Göttingen and Freiburg remain attractive.

But eastern German universities such as Leipzig, Chemnitz and Greifswald have increasingly challenged their western neighbours since unification. The Bonn-based AVH Foundation sponsors non-German scholars to spend extended periods of research in Germany. It grants 500 new fellowships a year and has a network of 20,000 alumni.

The top ten destinations for AVH fellows from 1997-2001 are:

  1 Munich Technical University, 116 fellows
  2 Munich University, 115 
  3 Berlin Free University, 112
  4 Heidelberg University, 95
  5 Berlin Humboldt University, 85
  6 Bonn University, 82
  7 Tübingen University, 78
  8 Erlangen-Nuremberg University, 77
  9 Göttingen University, 76
10 Cologne University, 69