Initiatives for the Mainz region.
Due to the foundation's ties to Mainz – and owing to its benefactors' commitment to it, as their home region – the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation particularly supports the life and natural sciences at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (JGU). In 2009, it pledged to donate a total of 100 million euros over a period of 10 years to the University, thereby enabling it to establish the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) as a non-university institute on its campus. In 2013, the foundation decided to donate a further 50 million euros to assist the JGU in reorienting its Faculty of Biology. In May 2018, the foundation and the State of Rhineland-Palatinate pledged to finance the IMB with a further 106 million euros until the middle of 2027. The foundation will contribute 54 million euros and the State 52 million euros. All three donations are intended to help create excellent conditions and prospects for basic research, thus enabling Mainz to establish itself as a competitive, excellent, and internationally recognized centre for the life sciences. At the same time, the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation and the University of Mainz are thus fulfilling their social responsibility to continuously advance scientific and medical progress.
In the course of its funding activities, the foundation goes above and beyond the legal requirements to satisfying all transparency-related obligations. Accordingly, the contracts governing the funding of the IMB are publicly available.