Anton-Betz-Stiftung der Rheinischen Post e.V.

The Anton-Betz-Stiftung der Rheinischen Post e.V. (Anton Betz Foundation of the Rheinische Post reg. assoc.) is a non-profit-making association for the promotion of science and research. Its goal is to promote science and research both idealistically and materially. It serves this purpose in particular by supporting scientific facilities, research and publications; it can also award scholarships and prizes in all scientific fields. The sponsorship of the University of Düsseldorf is of special concern to the foundation. It sup­ports med­i­cal re­search pro­jects in hos­pi­tals and teach­ing hos­pi­tals. It helps with the fund­ing of med­i­cal equip­ment. It is on hand with tech­ni­cal lit­er­a­ture when new sub­jects and cours­es of study are cre­at­ed. It makes sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions from the en­tire spec­trum of hu­man­i­ties pos­si­ble through print­ing cost sub­si­dies. It steps in­to the breach when in­no­va­tive fun­da­men­tal re­search pro­jects in the field of nat­u­ral sci­ences re­quire im­por­tant ad­di­tion­al equip­ment. Help­ing quick­ly and flex­i­bly – that is a much-praised char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Anton-Betz-Stif­tung der Rhei­ni­schen Post e.V.

To mark the 25^th an­niver­sary of the es­tab­lish­ment of the Rheinis­che Post, the share­hold­ers of the me­dia pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny es­tab­lished a foun­da­tion for the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence and re­search. It bears the name of the pub­lish­er and joint founder of the news­pa­per, Dr. An­ton Betz. It was pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic on 2 March 1971, 25 years af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of the first edi­tion of the Rheinis­che Post. Since then the non-prof­it-mak­ing as­so­ci­a­tion has served the ide­al­is­tic and ma­te­ri­al pro­mo­tion of sci­ence and re­search. “The An­ton Betz Foun­da­tion of the Rheinis­che Post en­joys keen in­ter­est from many sci­en­tif­ic and cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions, not on­ly from Düssel­dorf, but al­so from the sur­round­ing re­gion and the cir­cu­la­tion area of the news­pa­per”, says Dr. Es­ther Betz, who has chaired the foun­da­tion since 1985.

The foun­da­tion is open to all sci­en­tif­ic dis­ci­plines. A spe­cial con­cern of the foun­da­tion ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cles of as­so­ci­a­tion, how­ev­er, is the Hein­rich Heine Uni­ver­si­ty in Düssel­dorf, which re­ceives ap­prox­i­mate­ly two thirds of the an­nu­al spon­sor­ship funds for its pro­jects. The sphere of ac­tiv­i­ty of the foun­da­tion ex­tends the be­yond the uni­ver­si­ty area. “Some­times our spon­sor­ship en­ables the com­ple­tion of a sci­en­tif­ic pro­ject just with small sums; con­verse­ly, our sup­port is of­ten the cat­a­lyst for fund­ing from oth­er spon­sors”, says Es­ther Betz, and she adds: “The An­ton Betz Foun­da­tion of the Rheinis­che Post con­sid­ers it­self to be a con­tact part­ner in equal mea­sure for artis­tic and cul­tur­al in­sti­tutes as well as for civic ini­tia­tives for his­tor­i­cal and home­land re­search.”

The board of di­rec­tors of the An­ton Betz Foun­da­tion is the award com­mit­tee. The cur­rent mem­bers of the board of di­rec­tors are: Dr. Es­ther Betz as chair­per­son, Flo­ri­an Merz-Betz as deputy chair­man and sec­re­tary, Hans Pe­ter Bork as trea­sur­er as well as Dr. Lothar Schröder and Johannes Werle as assessor. A high-rank­ing board of trustees ad­vis­es the board of di­rec­tors and the mem­ber’s meet­ing on all ques­tions con­cern­ing the pro­mo­tion of the pur­pose of the foun­da­tion.