Management of GMD

GMD was established on 23 April 1968 as a limited liability company (GmbH). Its shareholders are the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by BMBF, the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (with 90%), and the states of Hessen and Nordrhein-Westfalen (with 5% each).

GMD's annual budget is DM 170 million, of which DM 130 million in basic funding comes from the shareholders: 90% from the federal government and 10% from the states of Berlin, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Hessen. A further 40 million comes in from project work and partnerships with industry.

Management, as described in the statutes (in German), is by an assembly of shareholders, a supervisory board, a board of directors, and two advisory boards, internal (Wissenschaftlich-Technischer Rat) and external (Wissenschaftlicher Beirat).

The chair of the supervisory board is Dr. Werner Gries of the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology in Bonn; the deputy chair is Minister Anke Brunn of the Ministry for Science and Research in Duesseldorf.

Management consists of one scientific-technical director, Prof. Dr. Dennis Tsichritzis, and one business-administrative director, Dipl.-Kfm. Friedrich Winkelhage.

The internal advisory board advises management and the supervisory board. Research and development activities of the GMD and appeals from institute directors require their approval. Of its twelve members, six are elected from among the institute directors and six from among the scientific-technical staff of GMD. The chair is Dr. Heinz-Dieter Böcker, and the deputy chair is Prof. Dr. Thomas Christaller.

The external advisory board currently has eleven members. It advises the GMD in its scientific planning. Its members are called by the directors, in consultation with the internal advisory board, from the worlds of industry and research. They come from Germany, France, Great Britain, Japan and the United States. The chair of the external advisory board is Prof. Dr. Andreas Reuter of the University of Stuttgart and the deputy chair is Prof. Dr. Hugo Kubinyi of BASF Ludwighafen.

The predecessor of GMD was the Institute for Instrumental Mathematics at the University of Bonn. The German Computer Center in Darmstadt was absorbed into GMD in 1977, as were parts of the Frankfurt Society for Information and Documentation (GID) in 1988.