More Flexibility for DESY

As the President of the Helmholtz Association, Professor Walter Kröll, informed middle of April, the 15 associated research centers will be granted a wider margin in matters of finance and human resources. The Budget Committee of the German Bundestag has agreed to abstain from mandatory staff appointment schemes in the future.

DESY Administration Director Christian Scherf commented: "This greater flexibility of the Helmholtz centers makes management much easier".
The so far predetermined "job pyramid" will be replaced by a more flexible mechanism, so that the conclusion of fixed labor contracts can much better follow the needs of research.
Another achievement refers to the annual budget. In the future the research centers may transfer 10 percent of their benefits into the coming year. This enables DESY to manage their annual budget in a more flexible way. The expenditure slow-down in summer, the numerous repostings by year end to exhaust the budget completely - all this is now a thing of the past. However, DESY will not be allowed to incur liabilities.
This decision of the German parliament enables Research Minister Bulmahn to fulfil a long time promise: "We don't want to manage our research facilities according to staff appointment schemes but according to programmes which are not imposed but developed jointly by science and economy".

Both decisions are essential prerequisites to implement the so called "Programme-oriented Funding" scheme at DESY. The decisive point of this scheme: from now there will be no funding for single institutes but for a comprehensive research programme developed by the centers. This research programme will be evaluated every five years and funded according to its quality. This procedure is carried out by the Helmholtz Association, with DESY being a member. Already next year, with the help of external experts, the Helmholtz senate will examine the research field "Structure of Matter" which also includes DESY´s activities. Subsequently it releases funding recommendations which are used by the German government as a basis for budget distribution.