Topics range from resilience in religion and spirituality to adaptive polymer gels and cytomegalovirus / Approximately €18 million for first funding period

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is establishing six new Research Units. This decision was made by the DFG Joint Committee upon recommendation by the Senate in Bonn. The new units will receive a total of approximately €18 million, including a 22 percent programme allowance for indirect project costs, for an initial three-year period. Research Units are generally funded for two three-year periods. In addition to approving the six new units, the Committee extended eight Research Units and one Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences for a second funding period.

Research Units enable researchers to pursue current and pressing issues in their research areas and to take innovative directions in their work. Centres for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences are tailored to the working methods used in these disciplines. With today’s decisions, the DFG is now funding 168 Research Units, 10 Clinical Research Units and 12 Centres for Advanced Studies in SSH.

The six new groups
(in alphabetical order by spokesperson’s university)

The detection rate of causal mutations of rare genetic diseases is stagnating because, although all coding regions of the human genome have been successfully deciphered, diseases caused by changes in non-coding sections are still not understood. The Research Unit “Beyond the Exome – Identifying, Analysing, and Predicting the Disease Potential of Non-Coding DNA Variants” therefore intends to improve the evaluation of whole genome sequences and bring together information on gene regulation in a single database. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Markus Schülke-Gerstenfeld, ECN Member, Charité Berlin – FU Berlin and HU Berlin)

More Information:
DFG, German Research Foundation