---
title: "Science and technology in Germany"
chunk: 1/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:40:32.655595+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Science and technology in Germany has a long and illustrious history, and research and development efforts form an integral part of the country's economy. Germany has been the home of some of the most prominent researchers in various scientific disciplines, notably physics, mathematics, chemistry and engineering. Before World War II, Germany had produced more Nobel laureates in scientific fields than any other nation, and was the preeminent country in the natural sciences. Germany is currently the nation with the 3rd most Nobel Prize winners, 115.
The German language, along with English and French, was one of the leading languages of science from the late 19th century until the end of World War II. After the war, because so many scientific researchers' and teachers' careers had been ended either by Nazi Germany which started a brain drain, the denazification process, the American Operation Paperclip and Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim which exacerbated the brain drain in post-war Germany, or simply losing the war, "Germany, German science, and German as the language of science had all lost their leading position in the scientific community."
Today, scientific research in the country is supported by industry, the network of German universities and scientific state-institutions such as the Max Planck Society and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The raw output of scientific research from Germany consistently ranks among the world's highest. Germany was declared the most innovative country in the world in the 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index and was ranked 11th in the Global Innovation Index in 2025.

== Institutions ==

The Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities (abbreviated Academies Union) is an association of the eight largest academies of sciences in Germany.
The Deutsches Museum, 'German Museum' of Masterpieces of Science and Technology in Munich is one of the largest science and technology museums in the world in terms of exhibition space, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology.
The Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, 'Federal Ministry of Education and Research' (BMBF) is a supreme authority of the Federal Republic of Germany for science and technology. The headquarter of the Federal Ministry is located in Bonn, the second office in Berlin. It was founded in 1972 as Federal Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT) to promote basic research, applied research and technological development.
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (German: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK, previous BMWi)

=== Foundations ===
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research association)
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), promoting international exchange of scientists and students)
The Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, 'Fritz Thyssen Foundation' supports young scientists and research projects. It was founded in 1959 and is located in Cologne. The purpose of the foundation, with an endowment capital of €542.4 million, is to promote science at scientific universities and research institutes, primarily in Germany, under particular consideration on young scientists.

=== National science libraries ===

German National Library of Economics (ZWB), Kiel & Hamburg
German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED), Cologne & Bonn
German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB), Hanover

=== Research organizations ===

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (complex systems und large-scale research), Bonn & Berlin
Fraunhofer Society (applied research and mission oriented research, Munich)
Leibniz Association (fundamental and applied research), Berlin
Max Planck Society (fundamental research), Munich
Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik ("Society of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics"), Dresden
The Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), officially: Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH, is a privately financed IT institute and, together with the University of Potsdam, forms the Digital Engineering Faculty. It is located in Potsdam-Babelsberg and researches practical and applied topics in digital technologies. Its founder and namesake is SAP founder Hasso Plattner.

=== Prize committees ===
The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is granted to ten scientists and academics every year. With a maximum of €2.5 million per award it is one of highest endowed research prizes in the world. The prize and the mentioned organization above is named after the German polymath and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who was a contemporary and competitor of Isaac Newton (1642–1727).
The Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award is a prize for "outstanding achievements" in the field of analytical spectroscopy. The prize is named in honor of chemist Robert Bunsen and physicist Gustav Kirchhoff (→ Physics).
The Helmholtz Prize is awarded with €20,000 every two to three years to European scientists for scientific and technological research in metrology.

== Scientific fields ==

The global spread of the printing press with movable types and an oil-based ink was a process that began around 1440 with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468) in the Free City of Mainz and continued until the introduction of printing based on this procedure in all parts of the world in the 19th century, thus creating the conditions for the dissemination of generally accessible scientific publications emerging to the revolution of science.

=== Scientific Revolution ===

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was one of the originators of the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries as an astronomer, physicist, mathematician and natural philosopher. He advocated the idea of a heliocentric model of the Solar System, which can be traced back to the theories of the ancient Greek astronomers Aristarchus of Samos and Seleucus of Seleucia, as well as to the 16th-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), whose main work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres' about the heliocentric model was first published by Johannes Petreius (c. 1497–1550) and likely the polymath Johannes Schöner (1477–1547) in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg in 1543. In March 1600, Kepler became assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia. After Brahe's death in October of the next year, Kepler succeeded him as imperial mathematician and court astronomer (until 1627).