Subject profiles of research institutions

The German Research Funding Atlas has always attached great importance to analysing the subject profile of universities and non-university research institutions based on various key figures. The research cultures in the individual subjects differ considerably in some cases – be it in terms of the type and scope of publication output, the importance of citations or, as is predominant in the German Research Funding Atlas, in terms of third-party funding acquired: as a result, a university’s subject profile is a key factor that affects placings in the various rankings.

In terms of DFG third-party funding, for example, physicians at universities obtain around 30 per cent of all DFG approvals, but they only account for around 17 per cent of all professorships at universities. An above-average amount of funding also goes to the technical subjects: the number of approvals per professorship is very high in these disciplines.

The profile of a university shows potential for interdisciplinary cooperation at the site

The specific subject structure of an institution also indicates the particular potential for interdisciplinary research at that site: for example, a technical university with a strong medical department is well positioned to undertake research in medical technology, while a university with strengths in both computer science and the humanities brings together experts who can make a significant contribution to advancing the field of digital humanities. By making such profile information widely visible, the DFG Funding Atlas increases the appeal of appropriately positioned universities to internationally mobile researchers who wish to focus on precisely this type of interface.

Finally, subject profiles are also an important starting point for appropriate benchmarking: only if the subject structure of university X is similar to that of university Y can the overall figures for the two institutions be meaningfully compared.

Testing of new ways to visualise subject profiles

The German Research Funding Atlas report series has repeatedly explored new ways of presenting subject profiles. Between 2009 and 2015, visualisations were presented as disciplinary maps on which universities with similar profiles were positioned close to one other. In 2018 there was a switch to so-called Voronoi diagrams, while in the same year so-called word clouds were tested. The current edition uses treemaps and ring graphics.

Ever since the German Research Funding Atlas report series was first published, a ranking has been established of the 40 universities that have attracted the highest level of DFG funding. This provides a compact comparison of the universities’ profiles.

Each university sets subject-specific priorities

The figure shows the DFG subject profile of the individual sites, broken down into 14 research areas which are highlighted in colour. Many of the institutions are dominated by shades of red, documenting the particular importance of the life sciences, especially medicine. The strong presence of technical universities in the top 40 is reflected in their high share of approvals in engineering disciplines (highlighted in blue), including computer science, systems engineering and electrical engineering.

Table 4-4 offers a compact illustration of how universities emphasise different research areas.

In the humanities and social sciences, the two Berlin universities HU Berlin and FU Berlin lead the DFG funding ranking, followed by the U Tübingen. Other scientific disciplines likewise have their own university rankings. No university excels in every discipline – each institution has its own distinct subject-specific focus.

The search function can be used to find detailed analyses at the level of 14 research areas, and even at the level of the 49 research fields.

The current DFG Funding Atlas website visualises the funding profiles of over 100 universities, broken down into funding provided by the DFG, the German government and the EU

Significantly expanded for the current edition, the Funding Atlas website features charts for over 100 universities which map the funding profile of each institution in the form of so-called ring graphics. For each institution there are graphics for DFG approvals, funding received from federal ministries, and funding under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.

The profiles of U Bochum are highlighted here by way of an example. With regard to its DFG profile, it has a special feature that was developed for the 2015 Funding Atlas: in that edition, a study was presented showing a) how broadly diversified the range of subjects was at the universities included in the Funding Atlas, and b) how this profile changed over time. U Bochum proved to be the university that, without exaggeration, could be considered the most “typical DFG university”. As the 2015 edition put it: “No other university represents the range of subjects funded by the DFG as comprehensively as Bochum.”

In the case of the large universities in particular, the subject-specific breakdown in relation to funding providers is generally very similar. The DFG and EU profiles can be compared directly based on the 14 research areas thanks to a new classification method tested especially for this DFG Funding Atlas. Indirect comparisons are at least possible for federal government funding: here there is a differentiation between up to 15 funding areas (such as “Bioeconomy” and “Information and Communication Technologies”). The respective colours indicate the DFG research areas with which these most closely correspond.

There are limits to such comparisons, however, particularly with regard to the humanities and social sciences: these account for a very stable share of 15 per cent of the DFG’s funding over time and are represented much less frequently at federal and EU level.