The DZNE was founded in 2009 as a member of the Helmholtz Association and as the first of the German Centres for Health Research (DZG).
It comprises ten sites (Berlin, Bonn, Dresden, Göttingen, Magdeburg, Munich, Rostock/Greifswald, Tübingen, Ulm and Witten) and thus concentrates expertise, which is distributed throughout Germany within a single research institution and is organised as an association