Welcome to the Carl Zeiss Foundation! Founded in 1889 by the physicist and mathematician Ernst Abbe, the Carl Zeiss Foundation is one of the oldest and biggest private science funding institutions in Germany. The Foundation considers itself to be a partner for people engaged in visionary and outstanding academic work in the fields of natural science and engineering. Basic research and application-orientated science are equally important to it. The goal is to create an open environment for scientific breakthroughs in both disciplines. The Carl Zeiss Foundation is a funding institution in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia. It finances its funding activities through dividends paid by the two foundation companies Carl Zeiss AG and SCHOTT AG..