DFG Funding Atlas Underscores Strength of Research

The University of Siegen achieved its best-ever ranking in the German Research Foundation’s “DFG Funding Atlas 2024.”

The University of Siegen has established itself as a strong research university, according to the latest figures from the DFG Funding Atlas. With a total of 41.8 million euros in approved third-party funding from the German Research Foundation, the university rose to 51st place out of 229 German higher educational institutions. That represents Siegen’s best ranking since the start of the assessment 30 years ago. Released every three years, the DFG Research Atlas provides an overview of how German higher educational institutions perform in soliciting third-party funding.

In the 2024 version of the atlas, the University of Siegen managed to crack the top 40 in two different areas: The field of humanities and social sciences rose to 28th out of 159, while the engineering sciences landed at 37th out of 152 in terms of absolute research funding among supported higher educational institutions in Germany. These high-flying results for the pair of disciplines were breathtaking.

“I'm tremendously proud of these outstanding rankings,” says University Rector Professor Stefanie Reese. “They clearly emphasize that our university plays an important role within the community of research-intensive universities and demonstrate our proven track record in securing funding. The strong assessments reflect a much larger shared effort.” Professor Andreas Kolb, prorector for research, infrastructure and collaboration, adds: “These results clearly demonstrate the strength of research and international competitiveness of the University of Siegen in central academic disciplines.”

The Funding Atlas by the German Research Foundation is considered an important benchmark for the competitive strength of Germany's higher educational institutions. Many leading universities achieve top positions in the rankings not least because of their size: Institutions that are home to many researchers naturally feature a higher number of persons seeking to acquire third-party funding. When funding is evaluated proportionately based on number of researchers, the University of Siegen actually achieves an even stronger showing.

In terms of funding per researcher, the University of Siegen holds 8th place in the engineering sciences in NRW, while the humanities and social sciences score 18th across Germany. As such, it outperformed renowned universities like those in Heidelberg, Cologne, and Göttingen and just behind the LMU Munich. For sub-disciplines in the area of humanities and social sciences, the fields of art, music, theater, and media science stand out for second place rankings across Germany, while the educational sciences and educational research likewise secured a second place finish.

In addition to their successes in the DFG funding, the engineering sciences also scored impressively in terms of international research funding by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (18th out of 71) and the programs of the German Academic Exchange Service (13th out of 53).

The latest edition of the Funding Atlas — the eighth in its history — was published in 2024 and covers the funding period from 2020 to 2022. LMU Munich has held first place since the 2015 edition, and the Technical University of Munich second place. The RWTH Aachen is the best-ranked university in NRW, currently holding 3rd place. The complete “Funding Atlas 2024” and additional materials can be found online at www.dfg.de/foerderatlas.