The foundation’s statutes oblige the Heart Institute to participate in scientific research and to co-operate with other heart centres in Germany and abroad. To do justice to the size and extent of this obligation, the German Heart Institute and the Freie Universität had signed a co-operation agreement as early as 27th July 1984. This stipulated that the leading physicians at the Heart Institute should be appointed as full (C 4) professors at the university, and should also carry out all the tasks of research and teaching which this appointment involved. Following widespread changes in the structures of the university medical schools in Berlin, an amended version of the co-operation agreement was finally signed with the Charité on 14th June 2005.

By way of this co-operation agreement, the individual departments at the Heart Institute are associated with the Charité in a number of ways. For example, Professor Lange and his successor Professor Berger have served as combined head of the two pediatric cardiology clinics, for a while Prof. Fleck was head of cardiology both at the Heart Institute and at the Virchow hospital, and the Heart Institute has sponsored foundation professorships – two of these at the Physiological Institute, including one for "Cardiovascular Disease in Women", and participates in the teaching programme for the reformed course of studies as well as in compulsory courses for students. To date the GHI has bestowed 261 doctorates and 25 post-doctorate qualifications required to become a professor, a total of 1,907 contributions have been published in scientific journals, in addition to 257 books and book contributions, and around 200 national and international symposia and congresses have been held.

The large number of scientific projects are funded by the surpluses achieved by the institute itself, by foundations, through contributions by the "Society of Friends of the German Heart Institute Berlin", private industry and, above all through research projects sponsored by the German Research Foundation and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the highlight of these being the "Competence Network Congenital Heart Defects", a large-scale project which Prof. Lange succeeded in bringing to Berlin.

Recently, the institute was able to move into the brewery premises on the grounds of the neighbouring institute for brewing technology. The building has now been converted into a research centre, making it an ideal annex for the Heart Institute with its otherwise limited spatial facilities.

Looking back, another feature which of course comes to mind is the repeated and manifold efforts to reform the German health system and hospital financing structures, reforms in which the Heart Institute has always played an important role.

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