[The constitution and attribution of government research agencies. A matter of need for science-generated policy knowledge?].

Government research agencies are a form of extra-university research institutions. In contrast to other extra-university research facilities they are subordinate to and financed by respective German governmental departments. As their mission they provide science-generated information, services, and monitoring to support the governmental departments. In science studies researchers proclaim a rigid association between the installation, attribution, and development of government research agencies and the increasing need for science-generated policy knowledge. The article examines this assumed association based on the personal, institutional, financial, and mission specific development of government research agencies between the years 1965 and 2005. According to the results the expansion of government research agencies stagnates--like science in general.