The Helmholtz Association (HELM) (www.helmholtz.de) with 28,000 employees in 16 research centres is Germany’s largest scientific organisation and has an annual budget of approximately 2.8 billion euros. HELM is a community of 16 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centres which aims to contribute significantly to solving the grand challenges which face society in the core fields of Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter and Transport and Space. These centres have been commissioned with pursuing long-term research goals on behalf of the state and society. The Association strives to gain insights and knowledge so that it can help to preserve and improve the foundations of human life. It does this by identifying and working on the grand challenges faced by society, science and industry.