Health Research Council

Tasks of the Council

The Health Research Council (GFR) was set up in 1990. Representatives of the major research and funding organisations from Germany and abroad are members of the council. It gives counsel to the BMBF on strategic themes of health research and for the design of the Health Research Programme. In addition the GFR has the task of improving collaboration between federal and state governments in health research and stimulating the dialogue between representatives of research and funding organisations in health research as well as between representatives of research and health care services.

The Health Research Council is supported by a Science Panel (Wissenschaftlicher Ausschuss, WA) and a Medical Technology Panel (Medizintechnischer Ausschuss, MTA).

The Science Panel advises the BMBF on funding topics in the areas of bio-medical, clinical and health care research and attends to their development. In coordination with the GFR, it assesses newly recommended topics for research funding, evaluates funding measures in progress and formulates recommendations on the perspectives of the research landscape as regards content and structure taking into account also the institutional funding.

The Medical Technology Committee advises the BMBF on project and institutional funding in medical technology. It gives recommendations at the level of the programme and funding priorities and consults the BMBF on the Medical Technology Action Plan, a general funding strategy bringing together different BMBF programmes and activities with relevance for medical technology.

In November 2004 the GFR initiated the formulation of a roadmap for the health research programme.
The roadmap is to present the foreseeable challenges for health research using broad scientific expertise in the field, and to identify strategic goals for scientific activities in the coming years.

The scientific office of the GFR is located within the DLR Programme Management – Section for Health Research