Facts and Figures

Funding and costs

The total Helmholtz Association budget in 2012 amounts to €3.58 billion. A good two thirds of this funding comes from public sponsors (in a 9:1 split between Federal and Länder authorities). The individual Helmholtz Centres are responsible for attracting more than 30% themselves in the form of contract funding provided by public and private sector sponsors.

Staff

The number of staff has risen up to 33,619. 11,369 staff are scientists.*

Please note that the tables do not count individuals but rather person years, an abstract value which records the calculated number or work hours across all staff. Core-funded work hours stand for the staff paid for by programme-oriented funding. 

The Helmholtz Association aims to provide outstanding minds with excellent conditions for creative work.

• Each year, several thousand visiting scientists and researchers from all around the world come to the Helmholtz Centres, not least to work on the large-scale scientific facilities and instrumentation which these Centres have; in some cases, this equipment is the only one of its kind in the world. In 2011 around 7,400 foreign scientists work in the Helmholtz Centres. 
• Helmholtz gives young scientists the opportunity to work in major teams of international researchers and to use the high-performance research infrastructure for their projects. Currently Helmholtz enables some 6,234 doctoral students to gain further qualifications at the research centres and to work independently at an early stage.*

Activities

The Helmholtz Association concentrates its resources within specific programmes where it carries out top-class research in six research fields. These are Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Aeronautics, Space and Transport, Key Technologies, plus Structure of Matter.

• In 2011, 10,491 publications were published in ISI indexed scientific journals and a further 2,564 other refereed publications. 
• In 2011, Helmholtz researchers have raised more than one billion euros for their scientific research work.

Helmholtz transfers scientific knowledge into innovation and on into the market and so contributes to creating the technological basis for a competitive society.

• almost 350 patents pending in 2011
• 55 spin-offs from the Helmholtz Centres between 2007 and 2011
• almost €16 millions receipts from 1,500 licence agreements (2011)
• more than 3,000 collaborative projects with industry generate revenue of app. €160 millions (2011)

illustrate the Helmholtz Association's commitment.

*including GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel