[Basic surgical research as an interdisciplinary responsibility].

Surgical research starts with a disease or a clinical problem of the surgeon's and the research has the benefit of the patient as its ultimate goal. Basic surgical research, in agreement with this task, must therefore be defined as biomedical and clinimetric research. The problem determines the approach. Basic surgical research, therefore, is interdisciplinary; it forms a bridge between basic science and the clinic. Surgical research compared with other medical disciplines, however, is not well funded by current programs of official grant giving organisations, such as DFG and BMBF. To encounter this deficiency, it is mandatory to support existing concepts of successful surgical research, such as institutes/departments of surgical research and theoretical surgery.