Rare diseases are defined by lifetime prevalence and are a medically heterogeneous group. Treatment options and the state of knowledge about these diseases are also very heterogeneous, as well as the respective needs for research. This article provides an overview on funding programs in Germany, further examples of countries within Europe and the European Commission, and a few examples of research networks. It is one of the goals of the article to show similarities and differences between the funding programs. The funding organizations of most countries and the European Commission (FP7) fund research on rare diseases with programs in which researchers define the contents in bottom up approaches. While, in general, basic science is well established, the translation of knowledge into clinical benefit for the patients is slow. Because of the low prevalence and geographic distribution of patients and researchers, research on rare diseases suffers from infrastructural deficits. While France, Germany, Italy and Spain have implemented research programs which are specific for rare diseases and aim to support networking of scarce resources and to stimulate interdisciplinary collaborations, other countries fund research on rare diseases within the context of general programs.

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