Funding organisation to discuss strengthening resilience in academia against the backdrop of current political developments / Formal ceremony and presentation of the Communicator Award

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is due to hold its 2026 annual meeting in Bonn from 29 June to 1 July. The meeting is being held at the invitation of the University of Bonn, one of the DFG’s 99 member organisations. The city on the Rhine is also the seat of the association and home to the DFG’s Head Office. With an annual budget of around €3.8 billion and more than 30,000 funded projects, the DFG is Germany’s largest research funding organisation and central self-governing organisation for science and the humanities. The last DFG annual meeting to be held in Bonn took place in 2018.

All of the DFG’s statutory bodies will convene during the course of the three-day event: the Executive Committee, the Senate, the Joint Committee and the General Assembly. The DFG’s liaison officers at member universities will also come together for their annual meeting. There will also be two high-profile individual events with guests from academia, politics and society: the formal ceremony and the presentation of the Communicator Award.

One of the key topics to be discussed in the meetings of the DFG’s statutory bodies will be resilience in academia and ways of strengthening it. Against the backdrop of current political developments and events, including those in Germany, attention will focus not only on the DFG itself and its funding activities, but also on the research system and freedom of research more broadly. The agenda also includes discussions of current statements, such as one on the importance of real labs in the agricultural, food and nutrition sciences, as well as funding decisions such as the establishment of new Research Units.

At the concluding General Assembly on 1 July, DFG President Professor Dr. Katja Becker and Secretary General Dr. Heide Ahrens will report on the DFG’s funding activities and other developments since the 2025 General Assembly in Hamburg. In addition, elections will be held to fill vacancies on the Executive Committee and the Senate. The DFG’s “2025 Annual Report” will also be presented, containing the main facts and figures on funding work. 

At the formal ceremony at the Bundeskunsthalle from 6 pm on Tuesday, 30 June, the DFG expects to welcome Dr. Rolf-Dieter Jungk, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), and Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, both of whom will deliver welcome addresses. Prior to this, Katja Becker and Bonn’s Deputy Mayor Dr. Ursula Sautter will welcome guests from academia, politics and society. In her address, the DFG President will focus on current political challenges: the theme will be the freedom and independence of the German research system. 

On Monday, 29 June, computer scientist Professor Dr. Ute Schmid will be presented with this year’s Communicator Award, a distinction conferred jointly by the DFG and Stifterverband. Professor Schmid, who is head of the chair for Cognitive Systems at the University of Bamberg, will receive the €50,000 award in recognition of her longstanding and sustained efforts to build bridges between academia, education, business and politics in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The award will be presented by DFG President Becker and Dr. Volker Meyer-Guckel, Secretary General of Stifterverband. The laudatory speech will be given by DFG Vice President Professor Dr. Johannes Grave, who chairs the Communicator Award jury. The award ceremony will take place from 7 pm at the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn.

Further Information

Notes on media relations:

The DFG will provide information about the annual meeting and the key decisions made in a series of press releases on Wednesday, 1 July, starting at approximately 2 pm. These will be continuously updated and made available in a digital press kit(interner Link) (in German only).

Additional information is also available on the DFG website at www.dfg.de(interner Link) and via social media on LinkedIn(externer Link), Bluesky(externer Link), Mastodon(externer Link) and Instagram(externer Link). 

The DFG’s 2025 Annual Report, embargoed until 2 pm on 1 July 2026, can be requested by sending an e-mail to: presse@dfg.de(externer Link)

Media representatives are cordially invited to attend both the presentation of the Communicator Award (Monday, 29 June, 7 pm, LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn) and the formal ceremony (Tuesday, 30 June, 6 pm, Bundeskunsthalle). Please register by sending an e-mail to presse@dfg.de(externer Link). The registration deadline for both events is 12 noon on the day of the event.