Förderung von Wissenschaft zu nationalen und europäischen Fragen
Alexander Dilger
May 2012

Download

Abstract 

Funding of Research and Teaching on National and European Issues

Research and teaching on national and European issues face a dilemma. In many disciplines world-class research is not only done in the USA but also and especially about it. American issues are analysed with American data with regard to US-institutions and so on. Individual researchers, research or funding institutions, all who are interested in the highest regarded research are well advised to ignore German and European issues. The often mentioned internationalisation is in many cases just an Americanisation. The contrary approach of e. g. German research by German researches only on national issues using local methods results in isolation up to academic inbreeding with dramatic consequences for scientific connectivity or even quality.

Therefore, the following middle course is recommended: Research on national and European issues with special regard to the local situation and using data from here gets special funding if the national and continental differences are important. In contrast, there is no special funding with regard to the nationality of the researchers. Moreover, the best methods of research and quality control have to be used. The funding can be project-related or ideally institutional by founding corresponding chairs, institutes, research clusters, journals, prizes and so on.