Anja Maria-Antonia Karliczek (née Kerssen; born 29 April 1971) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Minister of Education and Research in Chancellor Angela Merkel's fourth cabinet from 2018 to 2021.

While raising a family and working full-time, Karliczek studied business administration at University of Hagen from 2003 until 2008, with a diploma thesis analysing the fiscal advantages of transferring pension obligations from the employer’s point of view.

During Karliczek’s term, the German government introduced annual incentives worth 1.25 billion euros in 2019 aimed at supporting corporate research and development and boosting investments in cutting-edge technologies.

[6] In 2021, she publicly opposed proposals from the European Commission to restrict the right of scientists based in non-EU countries to collaborate in EU-funded projects on sensitive parts of the bloc’s €90 billion Horizon Europe scientific co-operation programme.

This was supposed to allow a slower proliferation of fast mobile internet in large parts of Germany in exchange for a larger amount to be gained by the federal government from the auction of frequency bands to operators.