DFG Annual meeting: Resilience to anti-science movements, stable funding year on year and new elections

"Where democracy is damaged, science is also affected, and vice versa. Science anywhere suffers, and as a result, the economy and society suffer too, not just there, but worldwide", declares Katja Becker, President of the German Research Foundation (DFG), on 02/07/2025.

She is speaking at the DFG annual meeting, held in Hamburg (Germany) from 30/06 to 02/07/2025.

"Currently, a veritable witch hunt is also breaking out in democracies in many forms, from the discrediting of scientific knowledge and the defamation and discrimination of researchers to open threats and worse."

She mentions the situation in the U.S., which "the scientific community here in Germany, as well as worldwide, is following with horror".

"The once world-leading American science system finds itself increasingly forced into isolation. Independent research is being massively restricted; one might almost say driven out and persecuted."

"What we are seeing is not simply a new science policy from the far right. It is war on science."

Discussions also focus on possible support offers and defence mechanisms, leading to the…