Third party funding of German universities. An indicator of research activity?

This article focusses on third party funding of research in German universities. The central question is, whether funding data can function as suitable indicators for the measurement of research performance of university departments. After a brief description of the importance and the extent of third party funding in the German system of research funding, the quality of data is discussed and the funding indicator is compared with bibliometric indicators. Resultened, one can say that in subjects where external funding of research is usual, the funding indicator points to the same direction as other indicators do. Because of the peer review process involved in grant awarding, a funding indicator is in many subjects a suitable indicator to evaluate R&D impacts.