Stella Hesch: “Despite criticism: Ministry of Research funds controversial project against anti-Semitism”, Correctiv, October 30, 2025.
Stella Hesch’s investigation at Correctiv reads like a political tragedy: The Federal Ministry of Research has awarded nearly nine million euros in funding to a project run by Ahmad Mansour’s company MIND, based on political considerations and without adhering to scientific standards and award criteria. This decision reveals a highly problematic understanding of academic research among the leadership of the responsible ministry and across all parties involved in the Bundestag committee’s decision. The fact that the funding decision was supported despite negative expert opinions from three science ministers from different parties—Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), Cem Özdemir (Greens), and Dorothee Bär (CSU)—speaks to a broad cross-party consensus on circumventing quality standards in the allocation of funding.
Mansour’s company was awarded extensive funding from the ministry, although the unanimous conclusion of the experts commissioned by the ministry was that Mansour’s project was “not eligible for funding”. This was explicitly communicated to the ministry in several negative expert reports, and both the experts and the ministry’s technical staff had expressed considerable doubts about the scientific quality and ethical implications of the project.
The political awarding practices documented in the investigation are unworthy of a federal ministry. They ignore the peer review process necessary for quality assurance and violate the scientific standards inherent in the awarding of funding. This undermines confidence in good and ethical scientific practice and awarding procedures.
Moreover, this approach is reminiscent of the funding scandal in the summer of 2024, when the then minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, had it examined whether funding could be withdrawn from undesirable scientists. Here, too, political positioning seemed to be more important to the ministry than scientific standards.