ZEIT-Stiftung Bucerius

The first scholarships in the 1970s were awarded to young journalists, to enable them to study at Harvard University in Cambridge/US as part of the ZEIT Fellowship programme. In the 1980s, Gerd Bucerius began to actively support stronger competitiveness in higher education in Germany, and gave substantial funds to the private University Witten/Herdecke. In order to promote Hamburg's literary scene, the foundation acquired a villa on the Outer Alster Lake. The Literaturhaus Hamburg opened in 1989, and since then the foundation has made the venue available rent free to the City of Hamburg and the organization Literaturhaus-Verein. In the 1990s, the foundation increased its investments in academia and set up the Gerd Bucerius-Juraprogramm a scholarship programme for young lawyers. Until the death of Gerd Bucerius, the foundation funded 90 individual projects with a total of 15 million euros. Upon the deaths of the founder in 1995 and of his wife in 1997, the couples' entire private assets were bequeathed to the foundation. Over the past ten years, the foundation has provided a total of 162 million euros in grants.

Bucerius Law School in Hamburg was established in 2000 and has since then been funded solely by the foundation as a private law school. Furthermore, the Zeit-Stiftung aims to provide funding and grants to 'young, gifted, international researchers engaged in interdisciplinary studies'. The foundation also supports projects in the humanities and social sciences with a focus on Hamburg and Haifa.