The Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts has existed in its present form since October 1998. It is responsible for all Bavarian universities, universities of applied sciences, academies of art, the arts and culture, and for some of the research institutes in Bavaria. The political head of the ministry is state minister Dr Wolfgang Heubisch. He is a member of the Bavarian cabinet.

In Germany, the states have the autonomy in cultural and educational matters. So one of the State Ministry's major goal is to maintain and increase the high quality of Bavaria's universities, and to promote their internationalization and modernisation. In order to achieve this goal, financial support for research and teaching at universities is provided. In addition, the ministry coordinates the long-term strategy of research and sets the framework for higher education in Bavaria within the scope of federal acts.

The other field of responsibility is cultural life in Bavaria. The ministry attends to state-owned theatres, museums, libraries, archives et al. It gives money to the "culturally creative" and for their projects, with the aim of conserving the cultural diversity in all parts of Bavaria.

The Free State of Bavaria invests about 4.9 billion Euros of its regular budget in these fields annually (year 2009). On top of this, finance is made available by the Bavarian Cultural Fund.