A new report from the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reveals significant levels of external funding secured by German university professors in 2023. On average, a professor at a German university attracted €332,200 in third-party funding – an increase of €5,800, or approximately 2%, compared to the previous year.
RWTH Aachen University maintained its leading position in terms of third-party funding per professorship, securing an average of €1,127,000. The Technical University of Munich followed with €863,200 and the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg with €697,400. To ensure accurate comparisons between institutions with and without medical facilities, the report excludes funding secured through medical institutions and health sciences, which typically generate extremely high levels of external funding.
In terms of total third-party funding secured, the Technical University of Munich led the way in 2023, attracting €405 million. RWTH Aachen placed second with €396 million, followed by the Technical University of Dresden with €298 million. These funds are predominantly secured for specific research projects and areas of study.
An analysis of funding across different academic disciplines revealed that engineering garnered the highest level of third-party funding per professor, averaging €718,600, a 1% increase from 2022. Human medicine and health sciences followed with €661,600, representing a slight decrease of 1%. Agricultural, forestry and nutritional sciences, including veterinary medicine, secured €422,500.
Contrastingly, considerably lower levels of external funding were observed in law, economics and social sciences (€170,700 per professor) and in the humanities (€150,300 per professor). The lowest funding levels were recorded in the arts and arts sciences, averaging €101,000 – though showing a substantial 14% increase.
Data also indicates a significant disparity in funding levels between universities and other types of higher education institutions. At universities of applied sciences, the average third-party funding per professor was €53,200 and at art colleges, it was €20,000. The average across all types of higher education institutions was €226,800.
