The Council
Research ministers meet in the EU's Competitiveness Council, where framework programmes, partnerships and recommendations such as the one on research security are negotiated. Germany's size makes it a necessary partner for any majority.
03.10 Science & Technology
No national research policy stops at the border
Germany's research and technology policy is made in Berlin and Bonn but delivered largely through Europe: the European Research Area, the EU's framework programmes, the European Space Agency and a growing list of joint initiatives on AI, quantum and biotechnology. This page sets out where Dorothee Bär's ministry fits in that system.
- Research Area
- Horizon Europe
- ESA & EU space
- AI gigafactories
- Quantum
- Biotech
- Research security
01 — Three levels
Who decides what
European research policy is not one system but three overlapping ones. Much confusion in public debate comes from treating them as the same.
National
Federal and Länder
Germany funds its universities, research organisations and programmes such as the High-Tech Agenda. This is where most public research money in Germany is spent.
European Union
Brussels and the Council
The EU runs the research framework programme, currently Horizon Europe, and owns the Galileo and Copernicus space systems. Germany shapes these as a member state in the Council.
Intergovernmental
ESA and others
The European Space Agency is a separate international organisation with its own member states, some of them outside the EU. Germany is currently its largest contributor.
02 — The European Research Area
A single market for research
The European Research Area (ERA), launched as an EU goal in 2000, aims at a single market for knowledge in which researchers, ideas and technology circulate freely, national programmes are coordinated, and infrastructures are shared. It is a policy framework rather than a fund: its tools are coordination, common standards and joint programming.
The money comes mainly from the EU's framework programmes. Horizon Europe, which runs from 2021 to 2027 with a budget of around €95 billion, is the world’s largest transnational research and innovation programme. It funds frontier research through the European Research Council, collaborative projects across borders, and innovation through the European Innovation Council.
Mobility is part of the design. Horizon Europe's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fund doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who move between countries and sectors, and the ERA's goal of open labour markets for researchers echoes in national programmes. Germany's own recruitment drive, 1000 Köpfe Plus, draws about 37 per cent of its approved researchers from other European countries, according to the DAAD, so that it competes for talent within the ERA as well as outside it.
German universities, research organisations and companies are among the most active participants. National policy and European funding are therefore complementary: German institutions build capacity with federal money and compete for European grants on top.
- ERA
- European Research Area: the EU's framework for free movement of researchers and knowledge.
- Horizon Europe
- The EU research and innovation framework programme, 2021–2027.
- ERC
- European Research Council: funds individual investigator-led frontier research.
- EIC
- European Innovation Council: supports breakthrough innovations and start-ups.
- ESA
- European Space Agency: intergovernmental, headquarters in Paris, not part of the EU.
- EUSPA
- EU Agency for the Space Programme: operates services of Galileo and promotes uptake of EU space data.
03 — Space
ESA and the EU space programme are not the same thing
The organisational decree of May 2025 gave Bär's ministry responsibility for both sides: Germany's ESA membership and, from the transport ministry, Earth observation, satellite navigation and Germany's Galileo PRS authority.
| European Space Agency (ESA) | EU Space Programme | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal nature | Intergovernmental organisation founded by convention | EU policy financed from the EU budget |
| Members | Its own member states, including non-EU countries such as the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland | The EU member states |
| Financing | National subscriptions decided at ministerial councils; Germany €5.4bn in November 2025 | EU multiannual financial framework |
| Flagships | Launchers, science missions, exploration, astronauts | Galileo (navigation), Copernicus (Earth observation), secure communications |
| Relationship | ESA acts as technical partner for many EU space systems: the EU owns and funds them, ESA helps design and procure them. | |
Analysis For Germany the dual structure means two arenas of influence. In ESA, the size of the national subscription determines which programmes run and where contracts go, a principle known as geographical return. In the EU, Germany is one voice among 27. The details of German space policy are on the space policy page.
04 — Joint initiatives
Where German goals meet European programmes
The High-Tech Agenda repeatedly defines its goals in European terms. Four fields show the pattern.
01AI gigafactories
The EU plans to support a network of "AI gigafactories": very large computing facilities for training the next generation of AI models, financed jointly by public and private investors. Member states and consortia were invited to express interest in hosting them. According to reporting, Germany submitted several expressions of interest.
One of the High-Tech Agenda's flagship goals, as listed by the Bundestag, is that at least one European AI gigafactory should be located in Germany. Responsibility for gigafactories moved to the BMFTR from the economics ministry with the organisational decree of May 2025.
Analysis Computing capacity is the field in which Europe's gap to the United States is most visible. A gigafactory in Germany would also bring large demands for electricity and land, a point that will matter for site decisions.
02Quantum Europe
Since 2018 the EU has funded quantum research through its Quantum Flagship, and in 2025 the European Commission presented a Quantum Europe strategy to turn research into industrial capacity. Germany's own goals, including "at least two error-corrected quantum computers at European top level" by 2030, are framed explicitly as contributions to European competitiveness.
The DLR's QUBE-II CubeSat project for quantum key distribution is one example of a German project in secure quantum communication, a field the EU is also pursuing. See quantum technology.
03European biotech partnership
The ministry's biotechnology plans, as summarised in July 2025, include taking on a role in a European biotechnology partnership by 2027. European partnerships under Horizon Europe pool national and EU funding around shared research agendas, which suits a field where clinical trials and regulation are largely organised at European level.
The national side, from the Berlin gene and cell therapy centre to the mRNA goal, is described on the biotechnology page.
04Research security
As research becomes strategically important, the risk of unwanted knowledge transfer to rival states rises. In 2024 the Council of the EU adopted a recommendation asking member states to strengthen research security while safeguarding academic freedom and openness.
Germany's answer is a National Platform for Research Security. On 19 December 2025 the federal government, the Länder and the science organisations agreed its key points. The BMFTR leads it and is its sole funder until 2029; it is due to start in autumn 2026 and to be fully operational from January 2027.
The issue gained urgency in October 2026, when Bär presented the results of a special investigation at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, which found that security-relevant knowledge could have flowed to China.
05 — Sovereignty
Openness and protection
„Die Welt ist massiv im Umbruch. Für Wohlstand und Souveränität in Deutschland und Europa müssen wir unsere Forschung sichern und gleichzeitig die Wissenschaftsfreiheit schützen.“
“The world is in massive upheaval. For prosperity and sovereignty in Germany and Europe we must secure our research while protecting academic freedom.”
The sentence names the tension at the heart of European technology policy. Science depends on openness: international co-authorship, conferences, the free movement of researchers. Yet the technologies that research produces, from AI to quantum computing, are now treated as instruments of economic and military power. "Sovereignty" in this vocabulary does not mean autarky, but the ability to make choices without being dependent on a single foreign supplier or state.
The ministry's other moves fit the same frame. The 1000 Köpfe Plus programme recruits researchers from abroad, around a fifth of them from North America, positioning Germany and Europe as a place of academic freedom. Space is described in the same terms of economy, security and sovereignty.
06 — Instruments
How Germany exerts influence
A national research minister has several levers in Europe. None of them works alone, and most depend on coalitions with other member states.
The EU budget
The size of the next framework programme, for the period from 2028, is decided within the EU's long-term budget. As the largest net contributor, Germany weighs research ambitions against overall spending limits.
ESA subscriptions
In ESA, money buys influence directly: subscriptions determine which programmes go ahead and, through geographical return, where industrial contracts go. The €5.4 billion pledged in 2025 is Germany's strongest lever in space.
Hosting infrastructure
Being the host of a facility, such as ESA's operations centre in Darmstadt or a future AI gigafactory, brings jobs, expertise and agenda-setting power. Bids to host are a recurring element of German policy.
Participation
Ultimately European programmes are only as German as the projects German researchers win. Strong national funding makes German institutions competitive in European calls.
Bilateral cooperation
Franco-German and other bilateral initiatives often precede European ones, in fields from AI to space. They allow a small group of countries to move first.
07 — Competition
Between the United States and China
European technology policy is increasingly defined by comparison. The United States leads in private investment, large AI models and venture capital; China combines state planning with industrial scale in fields from batteries to solar to telecommunications. Europe's strengths lie in its research base, in industrial engineering and in regulation, but it has struggled to turn research into globally leading companies.
The case for a stronger European role
No single European country can match the budgets of the United States or China in computing, space or quantum. Pooling money and infrastructure through the EU and ESA is the only way to reach comparable scale, and Germany, as the largest economy, has to lead.
The case for caution
European programmes are slow and bureaucratic, and the principle of distributing money across member states can work against concentrating resources on the best projects. National programmes may move faster, and a sovereignty agenda risks protectionism.
Analysis Bär's ministry has placed its national goals inside the European frame: a German AI gigafactory as part of an EU network, quantum computers "at European top level", a German astronaut as the first European to the Moon. This is both a political choice and a necessity. Whether Germany can turn its financial weight, especially in ESA, into lasting leadership will depend on how well national and European programmes are aligned in the next EU budget period.
For the national agenda behind these goals, see technology policy and research policy.