Military Research at Kiel University?

We publish a list of all

externally funded research at Kiel University!

Three university flags at the back of the Audimax at Kiel University.

Since last year, there have been renewed discussions at and around Kiel University regarding the introduction of a “Zivilklausel”, a university-wide commitment to only conduct exclusively civilian research. This issue has not gone unnoticed by us either. We would now like to promote transparency and thereby facilitate a fact-based debate.

For this reason, we submitted an IZG request (similar to a FOIA request) through FragDenStaat, asking the university for a list of all external funding secured.
And the university responded by providing the lists of externally funded research including project titles, funding amounts, faculties, and the type of funder (public including nonprofit, or private) for the years 2024, 2025, as well as 2026 through March.

On this page, we’d like to provide information on this topic and offer you the data for download so that you can form your own opinion.

Full lists for download

Notes on the dataset:

  • Kiel University was responsible for assigning the data to the faculties, filtering it, and compiling it. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of this data. The project titles suggest, for example, that externally funded projects of the Department of Computer Science are still attributed to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, even though the institute has been part of the Faculty of Engineeringsince 1994.
  • Some projects and amounts appear in the external funding lists for multiple years. This suggests that the list does not consist of external funding acquired in the respective years, but rather of those external funding projects for which costs were billed in the respective year.
  • The original lists of externally funded research contained, in some cases, the names of individuals working at the university. We have removed these names and replaced them with “XXNAMEXX” in each instance.

Here you can download the complete lists that the university sent us:

For inquiries, you can reach us at contact@diefachschaften.de.

What is externally funded research?

Externally funded research includes all research projects conducted using external funds.

Who is funding this research?

Since the lists we have do not include the names of the funding sources, we are unfortunately unable to provide exact details. In general, however, it can be said that companies, foundations, ministries, and government agencies are among the entities that fund research projects.

Is there obvious military research happening at Kiel Univerity?

No.

Is there dual-use research happening at Kiel University?

Yes.

What is dual-use?

Dual-use research is civil research, which can also be applied in a military context

Here’s an example: The Faculty of Engineering is currently running—or had been running (as of 2025)—the project “NEPTUNE - neue Schallwandlertechnologie für unbemannte Unterwassersysteme”. According to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy’s Maritime Research Program (via LinkedIn), research was conducted there on the development of a novel transmission method for low-frequency signal transmission underwater in cooperation with ELAC SONAR GmbH and Phi-Stone AG, and funded at least in part by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. According to the aforementioned LinkedIn post, the (civilian) applications lie in offshore wind energy, underwater infrastructure, and disaster and civil protection. However, it stands to reason that a company like ELAC SONAR GmbH, which features the tagline “We equip innovative navies with advanced sonar systems” on its About Us page, could also use a technology that, according to the LinkedIn post, “can reliably ensure communication and acoustic reconnaissance even on smaller, autonomous platforms” in military products as well.

This piece isn't intended to take a stance for or against a specific externally funded project or a particular research collaboration. Rather, using a project like this as an example, it highlights the fundamental difficulty in ethically evaluating externally funded projects in general: on the one hand, such technologies can support the expansion of renewable energy or aid in disaster-stricken areas; on the other hand, they could also be used in military underwater drones. Do the potential civilian or military benefits outweigh the others?

Furthermore, the distinction between military and civilian research is rarely clear, making the field of dual-use research a broad one: magnetoencephalography (MEG), for example, was originally developed in medicine to measure brain waves noninvasively (without opening the skull). This process involves the use of highly sensitive magnetometers. However, highly sensitive magnetometers can also be used to locate tanks on the battlefield. But should research on highly sensitive magnetometers be halted for that reason?

Especially in times of tight budgets and reduced base funding, external funding is becoming an increasingly important — if not unavoidable — component of research funding. That is why it is still important to have these discussions.

From the dataset: Share of external funding between faculties

Public vs. private funding

What's the situation like at your faculty?

Based on data for the year 2025.

We demand: Proactively publish the lists of externally funded research!

The response to our request shows that the lists of externally funded research are not a state secret. However, it should not be our responsibility to request this information from the university every year and make it publicly available. We call for the university to publish its lists of externally funded research — just like other statistics — on its website annually. We will continue to advocate for this in the future.