BMBF (Now BMFTR): Germany's Research Ministry

The BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Federal Ministry of Education and Research) was, for decades, the German federal ministry responsible for both education and research policy and funding. As of 6 May 2025 it no longer exists under that name. Following a machinery-of-government restructuring under the Merz coalition, the ministry was split: education policy moved to a newly formed BMBFSFJ (Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth), and the research, technology, and space-policy functions were carried forward under a new name, the BMFTR (Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt, Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space), led by Federal Minister Dorothee Bär. “BMBF” remains the term most non-German researchers, grants offices, and CVs still use out of habit, and bmbf.de now redirects to bmftr.bund.de — so this guide uses BMBF/BMFTR interchangeably where the underlying institution is the same body under two names, and calls out the split explicitly wherever the education side matters.

For a research administrator, what matters practically is this: the ministry — under either name — is Germany’s federal-government research funder and policy body, sitting structurally above and alongside the funding organizations most international researchers already deal with, including the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the DAAD, and the privately endowed Volkswagen Foundation. This guide explains what the ministry actually does, how its funding differs in kind from those better-known bodies, how it is organized, and where to look for open calls.

What BMBF/BMFTR Actually Is

BMFTR (formerly BMBF) is a cabinet-level federal ministry of the German government — not a grant-making foundation and not a peer-review agency in the way DFG is. Its core functions are:

Setting national research and innovation policy — strategy documents such as the High-Tech Agenda Germany, sector strategies for AI, quantum technology, and biotechnology, and Germany’s positions in EU and international science-policy negotiations.
Co-financing Germany’s major research organizations — alongside the 16 federal states (Länder), the ministry provides a large share of the core institutional budgets of DFG, the Max Planck Society, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Helmholtz Association, and the Leibniz Association, coordinated through the Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz (GWK, Joint Science Conference) and multi-year funding instruments such as the Pact for Research and Innovation (Pakt für Forschung und Innovation).
Running its own thematic project funding (Projektförderung) — competitive calls tied to specific policy priorities (health research, climate and energy, digitalization, quantum computing, space) rather than DFG’s open, discipline-led, investigator-driven model.
Co-funding the research side of the Excellence Strategy (Exzellenzstrategie), the joint federal-Länder programme that funds Clusters of Excellence and Universities of Excellence at German universities, administered operationally by DFG and the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat).

The practical distinction to hold onto: DFG funds individual investigators and research groups through open, curiosity-driven peer review; BMBF/BMFTR funds thematic, policy-directed programmes and provides the institutional funding base that makes bodies like DFG, Max Planck, and Fraunhofer possible in the first place. A researcher rarely applies to BMBF/BMFTR the way they apply to DFG for an individual grant — they apply to a specific thematic call, usually as part of a consortium.

From BMBF to BMFTR: What the May 2025 Split Actually Changed

The restructuring split the former ministry’s two portfolios apart rather than simply renaming the whole thing:

Research, technology, and space stayed with the ministry, which was renamed BMFTR and continues from the same Bonn/Berlin dual-seat arrangement the former BMBF used.
Education policy (school education, vocational training, and related federal-state coordination) moved to the newly created BMBFSFJ, led by Karin Prien, merging it with the former family-affairs ministry’s portfolio.
Higher-education research funding and university-facing programmes are generally understood to have stayed with BMFTR, though the coalition agreement did not spell this out explicitly at the time of the split — German science-organization representatives have publicly stated their expectation that higher education remains a BMFTR responsibility.

For anyone maintaining institutional records, CVs, grant-acknowledgment text, or compliance documentation that references “BMBF,” the practical takeaway is: pre-May-2025 awards and legacy documentation correctly say BMBF; funding decisions, calls, and correspondence from May 2025 onward will increasingly carry the BMFTR name. Both refer to the same legal entity for continuity purposes on existing grant agreements.

How BMBF/BMFTR Funding Differs From DFG, DAAD, and the Volkswagen Foundation

These four names appear together constantly in German funding acknowledgments, which leads to real confusion about who is actually funding what:

BMBF/BMFTR — federal government ministry. Funds thematic, policy-directed programmes plus the institutional core budgets of Germany’s research organizations. Not a peer-review body itself for most of its programmes; relies on external Project Management Agencies (Projektträger) to administer calls.
DFG — a self-governing membership association (not a government body) that runs open, discipline-led, investigator-initiated peer review across all fields of research. Receives its core operating budget jointly from the federal government (via BMBF/BMFTR) and the Länder, but decides individual funding awards independently through its own review boards.
DAAD — the German Academic Exchange Service, focused specifically on academic mobility: scholarships, exchange programmes, and international academic partnerships for students and researchers moving into or out of Germany. Substantially funded by BMBF/BMFTR and the German Foreign Office, but organizationally a separate registered association of German universities.
Volkswagen Foundation — Germany’s largest private research funder, financially independent of both the federal government and the Volkswagen automobile company. Not part of the federal/Länder public-funding system at all; its endowment income funds its own grant programmes on its own priorities.

A useful shorthand: if a funding line reads “DFG-funded,” a peer-review panel of researchers made that call. If it reads “BMBF-funded” or “BMFTR-funded,” a federal ministry programme, usually administered by a Projektträger against published thematic priorities, made that call. If it reads “Volkswagen Foundation-funded,” none of the public funding system was involved at all.

Structure and How Funding Gets Administered

BMFTR (like most German federal ministries) is organized into departments led by state secretaries and directors-general, covering areas such as research policy, key technologies, health research, climate/energy/sustainability research, European and international affairs, and space. It is a relatively small ministry relative to the funding volume it oversees, so day-to-day administration of most competitive programmes is delegated to external Project Management Agencies (Projektträger) — specialized organizations, several of them hosted within public research institutions such as the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Jülich Research Centre, that publish calls, run application and review processes, and manage funded projects on the ministry’s behalf under its policy direction. This is structurally different from DFG, which runs its own internal review-board (Fachkollegien) system rather than outsourcing review administration.

Applicants and grants administrators should expect to interact primarily with the relevant Projektträger for a given call, not with the ministry directly, and to find funding announcements aggregated on the federal government’s central funding portal (Förderportal des Bundes) rather than on bmbf.de/bmftr.bund.de itself, which functions as a policy and institutional information site rather than an application portal.

Major Funding Areas and Programmes

BMBF/BMFTR’s thematic portfolio spans several recurring priority areas, reflected in its own published strategy documents:

Key and emerging technologies — artificial intelligence, quantum computing and quantum technologies, robotics, microelectronics, and supercomputing, framed under the ministry’s High-Tech Agenda Germany.
Health and life-sciences research — including pandemic-preparedness and translational-medicine funding lines.
Climate, energy, and sustainability research.
Research infrastructure — including co-funding of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), Germany’s federated consortium approach to research-data management infrastructure.
International and EU research cooperation — including Germany’s national co-funding role and National Contact Point coordination for Horizon Europe, and bilateral/multilateral science-cooperation agreements.
Space research and technology — newly foregrounded in the ministry’s own name after the 2025 restructuring, reflecting an expanded space-policy mandate.

Reported figures put BMFTR’s 2025 federal budget at roughly €22.3 billion, though ministry budgets are set annually by the Bundestag and should be re-confirmed against bmftr.bund.de or the federal budget documents directly for any current-year figure used in a funding proposal or report.

How to Find and Access BMBF/BMFTR Funding

Unlike DFG’s continuously open individual-grant tracks, most BMBF/BMFTR funding runs as time-limited thematic calls tied to specific programmes. Practical starting points for a grants office or PI:

Check the Förderportal des Bundes (the federal government’s central funding-announcement portal) for currently open calls in a given thematic area, rather than searching bmftr.bund.de directly.
Identify the relevant Projektträger for the programme area of interest — each thematic portfolio (health, digitalization, climate, etc.) is typically administered by a specific agency, and pre-call guidance usually comes from that agency rather than the ministry itself.
For EU-level funding administered in coordination with the ministry, use the German Horizon Europe National Contact Points network rather than applying through BMFTR directly.
Most BMBF/BMFTR programmes expect a German host institution or a consortium including one, which is a meaningful eligibility constraint for non-German applicants compared to DFG’s more individually accessible programmes for researchers with a German affiliation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is BMBF the same organization as BMFTR?

Yes, for the research and technology portfolio. BMFTR is the renamed continuation of the former BMBF’s research, technology, and space functions as of 6 May 2025. The former BMBF’s education-policy functions moved to a separate new ministry, BMBFSFJ, rather than staying with BMFTR.

Does BMBF/BMFTR give grants directly to individual researchers, like DFG does?

Rarely in the DFG sense. Most BMBF/BMFTR funding is thematic project funding awarded to institutions or consortia against published calls, administered by external Project Management Agencies (Projektträger), rather than open, continuously available, investigator-initiated grants reviewed by discipline-specific peer-review boards.

Why do DFG, Max Planck, Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, and Leibniz all list BMBF/BMFTR as a funder?

Because the federal government, coordinated with the 16 Länder through the Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz (GWK), jointly provides the core institutional operating budgets of these organizations. That is separate from, and in addition to, the money DFG itself then awards competitively to individual research projects.

Should I still cite “BMBF” in a current grant application or acknowledgment?

For any award, agreement, or correspondence dated before May 2025, “BMBF” is the historically correct name. For current and future funding, use “BMFTR,” and check the specific funding notification or Projektträger guidance for the exact required acknowledgment wording, since federal funders in Germany are typically specific about how acknowledgment text must be phrased.

BMBF (Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research): Funding Programs and Structure