School Research Projects

From 2007 until 2011, in addition to the funding of big research projects, the Federal Ministry of Science and Research also provided funds for excellent and innovative school research projects in the framework of which schools wanted to actively support current research activities of scientists. The 30 highest scoring projects received awards as well as research prizes of up to 5,000 euros each.

The aim of this second, smaller funding track of the programme was to support projects in which schoolchildren, teachers and researchers worked together directly and carried out investigations together.

Only school research projects that were to be carried out in the following school year could be submitted. Completed projects or projects that were already running could not be submitted.

There were no restrictions in this programme as regards subjects and topics – there were, however, three decisive criteria for the selection of the projects:

• the school research projects were to make relevant contributions to current research activities,
  
• the supported researchers were in return to take part actively in the carrying out of the school projects
  
• the collaboration between researchers, teachers and schoolchildren had to take place on a partnership basis and had to be integrated into school life.

Scientific Partners

Scientific partners for schools could be university and non-university research institutions, universities of applied sciences and university colleges of teacher education.