Engineering sciences also made it into the top ten.
Oldenburg scientists from various disciplines are successful in acquiring public funding for their research in a nationwide comparison. This is made clear by the "Funding Atlas 2015", in which the German Research Foundation (DFG) has compiled current key figures on publicly funded research in Germany.
In the life sciences - which include medicine, biology and hearing research - the University of Oldenburg came in third place nationwide with DFG funding totalling 62,100 euros per researcher. Professors in the life sciences in Oldenburg received an average of 471,600 euros (15th place). The amounts relate to the years 2011 to 2013; the University of Oldenburg only founded its School of Medicine and Health Sciences in 2012 and has been building it up since then.
"Outstanding research can hardly be carried out without the necessary financial resources," says the university's Vice President for Research, Prof Dr Katharina Al-Shamery. "We are therefore all the more pleased with the University of Oldenburg's good to very good rankings for DFG funding."
The engineering sciences, which include Computing Science, are in eighth place in the national ranking for DFG funding per researcher, averaging 56,800 euros. For the years 2011 to 2013, the funding per professor totalled 302,700 euros (24th place).
The University of Oldenburg also achieved a place in the top 40 in the humanities and social sciences: with DFG funding per professor totalling €85,800 and per researcher €14,400, the university ranked 32nd and 38th respectively.
Funding is becoming increasingly important for research: according to the DFG Funding Atlas, the nationwide third-party funding total of 6.8 billion euros in 2012 already accounted for 28 per cent of the total funding of German universities (excluding administrative income). In 2010, this "third-party funding ratio" was still 26 per cent, in 2003 it was only 19 per cent. A good third of the universities' most recent funding came from the DFG as the most important provider of third-party funding.