About Us

The Robert Bosch Stiftung is one of the major German foundations associated with a private company and has managed the philanthropic bequest of company founder Robert Bosch for more than 40 years. Indeed it was his entrepreneurial vision, political farsightedness, moral fortitude and charitable initiatives that set the standards for the work of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Background
In 1964, the Bosch family's inherited shares in the company Robert Bosch GmbH were transferred to an estate - Vermögensverwaltung Bosch GmbH - that Robert Bosch had founded back in 1921. This was subsequently renamed Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH (Robert Bosch Foundation) in 1969. The Foundation still holds 92 percent of Robert Bosch GmbH's capital stock of €1.2 billion.

The Bosch Constitution
The Foundation exclusively and directly serves charitable purposes. As a shareholder of Robert Bosch GmbH the Foundation receives a proportion of the distributed dividends in the company. Given its status as a charitable institution the Foundation does not engage in corporate activity. The voting rights associated with its shares in Robert Bosch GmbH have been transferred to a trust, Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG. This clearly separates the entrepreneurial and philanthropic aspects of the Foundation and allows it to undertake work "for the common good without thereby questioning the company's own business practices as such" (Hans.L. Merkle, 1972). The Foundation manages its assets as it believes Robert Bosch would have wanted it to.



The Board of Trustees and Management Board
The two decision-making bodies of the Robert Bosch Stiftung are its partners' meeting and management board. However its charitable activities and the deployment of its resources are determined by its Board of Trustees, which has nine members who are also partners of the Foundation. These partner-members act as trustees and must step down at the age of 72. As directed by Robert Bosch, the board of trustees is made up of members of his family, as well as entrepreneurs and personalities from the public domain.

The Board of Trustees:

• Dr. Kurt W. Liedtke (Chairman)
• Dr. forest. Christof Bosch
• Dr. h.c. Ludwig Georg Braun
• Wolfgang Chur
• Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz
• Prof. Dr. Renate Köcher
• Dr. Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller 
• Matthias Madelung
• Eberhard Stilz 

The Management Board:

• Dieter Berg (Chairman)
• Dr. Ingrid Hamm

The Foundation Today
The Foundation is divided into four areas to support and operate its aid program. In order to pursue the Foundation's objectives, it promotes external projects and initiates its own projects for developing and running programs.

Some 100 employees manage an average of about 800 internal and external projects a year. Approximately €63 million was spent on program work in 2010. In total the Robert Bosch Stiftung has provided grants worth €1 billion since its founding.

The Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus (Robert Bosch Hospital), the Dr. Margarete-Fischer-Bosch Institut für Klinische Pharmakologie (Institute for Clinical Pharmacology) and the Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung (Institute for the History of Medicine) are all part of the Foundation, as are the associated foundations of the Hans-Walz-Stiftung, the Otto und Edith Mühlschlegel Stiftung, the DVA-Stiftung, and the Rochus und Beatrice Mummert-Stiftung.

The Robert Bosch Stiftung has its headquarters at Robert Bosch Haus, the former home of Robert Bosch in Stuttgart, though it has been based in the newly-erected Bosch Haus Heidehof since 2004 and has its Berlin office at the Berlin branch of Robert Bosch GmbH.