“Well over” €16 million is being invested in the six new Clinical Research Units (CRUs) set up last month by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the central public funding body for research in Germany.
The DFG itself is contributing a little more than half of that sum, it told PharmaTimes Clinical News. The rest is of the investment will come from the host universities or institutions for the CRUs, with exact contributions dependent on specific research programmes, it noted. Host institutions have to create the new post of a professor to head up their CRU, as well as matching the funding provided by the Foundation.
Basic research, applied research and clinical practice will be closely interwined in the new projects launched by the DFG at universities or university hospitals across Germany. Topics to be covered include neurodegenerative diseases, colorectal cancer and chronic heart insufficiency. The six new CRUs are in addition to the 35 already funded by the Foundation in Germany.
