Departmental research: Research for public services with special consideration in the area of State´s and European Union´s health responsibilities.
Final Report Abstract
Departmental research (Ressortforschung) finds its starting point in the need to direct government action rationally, effectively and in a goal-oriented manner. It enables the state to perform its tasks in accordance to scientific knowledge and the state of research. The project analyses the legally permissible and required framework of departmental research with special regard to the area of State and EU health responsibility within the context of the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Union and the European Administrative Union (Europäischer Verwaltungsverbund). The focus was placed on institutionalised departmental research, i.e. for Germany the "institutions with research and development tasks" in the form of a federal authority. Within the framework of a conceptual and functional definition of departmental research, the institutions were classified as part of the ministerial structure and at the same time a pillar of nonuniversity research. Institutionalised federal research raises central questions about federal authority, which can only be explained with reference to historical findings. Furthermore, the question of the freedom of research in federal institutions was given particular attention. From the principle of the rule of law (State power bound by the constitution) in conjunction with the guarantee of free science under Article 5 (3) of the Basic Law (German Constitution) in its objective-law dimension, a duty of the state can be derived to organise departmental research freely in certain basic parameters and to guarantee departmental research meeting these minimum requirements also in terms of organisational law. Departmental research was illustrated in more detail using the reference area of health. Four departmental research institutes are subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health. These institutes have been described in detail in their history and their tasks, which are partly based on special laws. Building a bridge between science and democratically legitimised executive power, it was examined whether departmental research institutes have a particular degree of discretionary power within the framework of “precautionary administrative law” (Vorsorgeverwaltungsrecht). As existing forms of institutionalised health departmental research at the Union level, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER), and two Union agencies, namely the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), were assessed in detail. This analysis resulted in a systematisation of EU departmental research. Two basic forms were identified and conceptually redefined, namely "institutionalised research of the EU" and "institutionalised and networked research between the Member States."
Publications
-
Ressortforschung: Forschung zur Erfüllung öffentlicher Aufgaben unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Bereichs staatlicher und unionsrechtlicher Gesundheitsverantwortung, Jus Publicum Bd. 312, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2022, 670 S. (Habilitationsschrift)
Weilert
