BMFTR: Bär: “The 1,000 Heads Plus program is working – a great success for Germany”

The 1,000 Heads Plus program is having an impact: more and more academics worldwide are specifically choosing Germany as a location for their research. This is shown by the current application figures of the partner organizations Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), German Research Foundation (DFG) and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The DFG’s application figures in the area of personal funding for the second half of 2025 have risen by around 33 percent compared to the same period last year. The AvH reports a 32% increase in applications from the USA for research grants and awards compared to the previous year, including a 63% increase in the last quarter alone.

Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär explains:

“The 1,000 Heads Plus program is working. Germany is an attractive location for top international researchers. This is shown by the application figures, which have risen by 33 percent. I am grateful that we launched the 1,000 Heads Plus program last year at exactly the right time. This is a great success for Germany. We want to invest more than 600 million euros in the 1,000 Heads Plus program over the next ten years. This makes us a frontrunner in Europe and will provide an enormous boost: for urgently needed skilled workers and for excellent research in Germany. This will benefit Germany as a location for innovation and business.”

Since the official launch of the 1,000-Köpfe-Plus program on 28.07.2025, the AvH and DFG have awarded a total of 168 grants to researchers from 34 countries. Most of the grantees come from Europe (36 percent), followed by Asia (30 percent), North America (20 percent), the Middle East/North Africa (5 percent), Central and South America (4 percent), Sub-Saharan Africa (3 percent) and Australia/New Zealand/Oceania (2 percent).

The program implements the “1000 Minds Program” agreed in the coalition agreement and makes an important contribution to the development of central future fields of the High-Tech Agenda Germany (HTAD) by attracting excellent international researchers to Germany as a science location in the long term and contributing to its international networking.

The future fields focused on by HTAD are strengthened by the subject focus of the grantees: 40 percent life sciences, 29 percent natural sciences, 20 percent engineering sciences, 10 percent humanities and social sciences.

The first call for applications for the AvH’s new sponsorship program, the Humboldt Research Professorships, is currently underway. The program offers top researchers the opportunity to set up research groups in Germany. The call for proposals for the new DFG funding program to strengthen large alliances such as clusters of excellence with top international researchers has just ended. There is great interest in the funding, particularly from the USA.

Background

The 1,000 Heads Plus program builds on programs of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Research Foundation. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) stands for the promotion of outstanding international researchers and is expanding Germany’s global cooperation networks through targeted measures. The German Research Foundation (DFG), the largest research funding organization and central institution for scientific self-administration in Germany, supports research in all its forms and disciplines at universities and research institutions.

The program was launched in summer 2025 with 227 million euros from BMFTR funds (Section 30) for the period 2025 to 2029 Additional funds for the 1,000 Heads Plus program have been earmarked from the Special Fund for Infrastructure and Climate Neutrality (SVIK). The federal government will strengthen the program with a further 375 million euros. These additional funds are to be used for structure-building investments in the research and science system in order to achieve the strategic expansion of research ecosystems via selected funding instruments.

New approval figures for the funding recipients will be announced at the beginning of April.

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Further links

👉 To the original press release

👉 To the 1,000-Köpfe-Plus program