German Universities Excellence Initiative

The Excellence Initiative by the German federal and state governments to promote science and research at German universities is a 2005/ 06 for the first time ausgelobtes support program in Germany, which started parallel to the basic conversion of higher education through the Bologna Process.

It is divided into three funding lines " future concepts" ( development of the university as a whole ), " Cluster of Excellence" (promotion of research topics of a complex) and " Graduate School" (promotion of graduate students in a broad area of ​​science ). Overall, in the previous two rounds of funding nine future concepts, approved 37 applications on clusters of excellence ( second conveyor line), and 39 Applications for Graduate Schools ( 1 funding line).

Public research organizations are supported by the research funding initiative Pact for Research and Innovation. The universities in Germany are also funded by the Higher Education Pact 2020, which is mainly a response to the growing number of students by the end of conscription and by double school graduation classes.

  • 3.1 dates
  • 3.2 Result
  • 3.3 Future Concepts
  • 3.4 Graduate Schools
  • 3.5 Cluster of Excellence
  • 4.1 dates
  • 4.2 Result
  • 4.3 Future Concepts
  • 4.4 Graduate Schools
  • 4.5 Cluster of Excellence
  • 5.1 dates
  • 5.2 Future Concepts
  • 5.3 Graduate Schools
  • 5.4 Cluster of Excellence
  • 6.1 The Saxon Excellence Initiative
  • 7.1 Focus on economic recoverability
  • 7.2 Strengthening research, weakening the teaching
  • 7.3 Short-term planning
  • 7.4 loss of quality, disadvantages for " non-elite universities "

Formation

Originally it was the aim of the university landscape in Germany with a major boost in the amount of about 1.9 billion euros over 4 years distributed (about 470 million per year) from the income of the state from the sale of UMTS licenses to sustainable to change. Then a compromise was reached on 23 June 2005, which allows for support of research on smaller or highly diversified universities. The German Research Foundation and the Science Council were entrusted with the organizational aspects and the scientific evaluation and monitoring. The Excellence Initiative is a multi-step application and review process in two rounds ( first round in 2005/2006, 2nd Round 2006/2007) carried out. Notably, international experts assess the quality of the draft proposals submitted and make recommendations regarding the eligibility from. The final decision on the request to make an application and promotion meets a joint body of the DFG and Science on the basis of expert recommendations.

The Excellence Initiative is to be seen as a competition of thematically closed research concepts; it was designed to be a such. The doctrine as such, their quality and their different intensity depending on the university plays no role in this process; this was due to the federalism reform, which awarded the area of ​​teaching the countries. Only in the conveying line graduate schools of doctrine comes as a specific element of a structured doctoral training a certain importance, but this has not as important as it in an undergraduate course of study and is not similar in their orientation.

Funding lines

The Excellence Initiative includes three action lines: graduate school, clusters of excellence and institutional strategies.

Graduate School

The conveyor line graduate schools serves the training of graduate students in a broad area of ​​science under excellent scientific support and excellent conditions. The research of the professors involved fades into the background, while the research of PhD students is paramount. For each graduate school per year are about one million euros.

Cluster of Excellence

The Cluster of Excellence called funding line of the Excellence Initiative, the scientific research to a broader subject area at a site in the foreground and is funded with approximately 6.5 million euros per year. It's not about to edit a specific part of a subject, but rather to bring together 25 outstanding scientists reported on a matter of social or economic relevance, which is operated jointly. This structural impact on the organizational structure of a university are expressly intended.

Future Concepts

The future concept describes the long-term development of a university in research. It includes the focus on specific topics, the target definition for the entire university as well as the description of the way there - so the strategic development. A successful application requires the acquisition of at least one cluster of excellence and a graduate school. The eleven excellent for its vision colleges are generally referred to as " elite universities ".

First round of the Excellence Initiative

Dates

Result

From the ten universities that were asked in the first round to make an application for the funding line " future concept ", on 13 October 2006, the LMU Munich, the Technical University of Munich and the University of Karlsruhe selected. They were promoted in the next five years with a total of 21 million euros annually. Condition were positive reviews from at least one excellence cluster and at least one graduate school.

In addition to the strategies for the future 18 more universities were recognized in the millions in the other two funding lines. All funded projects will be presented in the DFG Video Portal on the Excellence Initiative in a short film portrait.

The media has reported on a dispute between the representatives of the federal and state governments and the committee of the DFG and the German Science. The politicians who were present were also unhappy that they could not influence the final decision on the award of grants.

Future Concepts

The Foundation of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT ) - 2006

Graduate Schools

Source: Federal Ministry of Education

Cluster of Excellence

Second round of the Excellence Initiative

Dates

In contrast to the first round of the Excellence Initiative, this time there was a collaboration between Science, the German Research Foundation (DFG ) and politicians. First, the Scientific Council and the DFG met alone together. The RWTH Aachen University, Ruprecht -Karls- University of Heidelberg and the University of Konstanz were of the universities, which should make an application for the third funding line, chosen as a safe candidate for the future promotion policy. The Albert -Ludwigs- University of Freiburg and the Free University of Berlin, however, were classified as shaky candidates. The Ruhr- University Bochum, Humboldt University of Berlin and the Georg-August -Universität Göttingen should not be included in the third funding line, according to scientists. This assessment was then discussed with the politicians and the final list prepared jointly - in contrast to the sequence in the first round of the Excellence Initiative.

Result

On 19 October 2007 the results of this round were announced. The funded projects of the second round are presented in the DFG video portal with a short film portrait.

Future Concepts

Graduate Schools

Cluster of Excellence

Third round of the Excellence Initiative

Dates

On 12 March 2010, the DFG and the German Science published the criteria for the third round of the Excellence Initiative. Until 1 September 2010, the German universities were invited to submit their new draft proposals for Excellence Initiative. A total of 65 universities took this to be true. These ranged a 98 pre-proposals to graduate schools, 107 applications for clusters of excellence and 22 applications for future concepts.

On 2 March 2011 25 draft proposals from 18 universities for graduate schools, 27 draft proposals from 24 universities for excellence clusters and seven drafts were prompted for the future concept to September 1, 2011 to submit full proposals in these applications. Already in the first and second round of the Excellence Initiative approved projects were set to automatically invoked renewal proposals. In the third funding line, the concept for the future, were in addition to the institutional strategies already approved in the first two rounds, the Humboldt -Universität zu Berlin, Ruhr- University Bochum, University of Bremen, Dresden University of Technology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, University of Cologne and the Eberhard -Karls- University Tübingen selected.

A joint commission consisting of representatives of the German Research Foundation and the Science Council of the Federal Government reviewed by June 2012, the full proposals. The Joint Commission issued recommendations to the Appropriations Committee on, in addition to the members of the Commission membership includes EU Science Minister of the Federation and the Länder. The Committee then decided which applications will be funded until the end of 2017 with a total of 2.7 billion euros. The funds will be provided to 75 percent by the federal government and 25 per cent of the countries.

On 15 June 2012, the Committee issued from federal and state governments, the eleven universities known that henceforth may decorate with the title elite university itself. The Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Bremen, Dresden University of Technology, the University of Cologne and the University of Tübingen have been renamed, while the RWTH Aachen, the Free University of Berlin, the Ruprecht -Karls- University of Heidelberg, the University of Konstanz and the two Munich universities (Technical University of Munich, Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich) could defend the elite status. By contrast, the title lost the University of Freiburg, the University of Göttingen and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in this round.

The eleven with the " seal of approval " provided universities are located in six countries: Bayern (2 ), Baden- Württemberg ( 3), North Rhine -Westphalia ( 2), Saxony (1 ), Bremen (1) and Berlin (2).

Ten countries are left empty-handed. Besides the North states of Schleswig -Holstein, Hamburg and Mecklenburg- Vorpommern Lower Saxony, Saxony -Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thuringia, Rhineland -Palatinate, Hesse and Saarland will have no " University of Excellence ".

Future Concepts

Source: German Research Foundation, Science

Graduate Schools

Cluster of Excellence

Other models

The Saxon Excellence Initiative

In the Free State of Saxony received in the first phase, only the Technical University of Dresden for a Research Training and a Cluster of Excellence and the University of Leipzig for a Research Training funding from the Excellence Initiative of the federal and state governments.

The Saxon government decided in March 2007, with additional 110 million euros to promote their four universities by 2013 from funds from the European Regional Development Fund in the cutting-edge research. This is especially the nano-and microelectronics in the research are supported. The previously approved applications relate to the research field of biotechnologies. Especially in Dresden is referred to the enormous research funding in competing regions of microelectronics as Albany ( New York) and Grenoble.

Criticism

Hubert Markl says that the " zeitgeistschlüpfrigsten applications " are rewarded.

Focus on economic recoverability

With the Excellence Initiative, the federal government responded to the Lisbon Programme of the EU by 2000. Therein commit the EU Member States to invest in their education and science systems in order to make Europe more so by 2010 the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. The Elite Excellence Initiative serves to " sustainably boosting research in Germany [ to ] improve its international competitiveness [ to ] and make cutting-edge research at German universities visible [ to ] " (BMBF).

Critics of the initiative that this science is fundamentally tied to economic recoverability and would thus weakened to a whole disciplines and to other devices the freedom of science at risk.

Strengthening research, weakening the teaching

The Excellence Initiative are for the funding period 2006-2017 a total of 4.6 billion euros ( 1.9 billion euro first round, second round 2.7 billion Euro ) available. Of these, for the program " Teaching Quality Pact " from 2011 to 2020, only about 2 billion euros. provided. Critics see it as a development had already begun in the 1980s continued to get the consequence that the German universities in ever-growing numbers of students financial gains only selectively for selected areas of research funding ( external funding). Funding for teaching and learning had been frozen in essence.

The competition between the universities in Germany, Europe and worldwide would increase by this kind initiatives. This leads ultimately to a sharing of the educational landscape in a two-class system of higher education and thus would distinguish between " elite" and " mass ". On the one hand there is an elite class research for master's degree students and a mass education in the form of the bachelor who carry the desire for the fastest possible training for the labor market into account. Compared to the quality of the research, the quality of teaching plays a negligible role.

Short-term planning

Using the example of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ( KIT) and the University of Göttingen who received the status in the first and second round and got in the third deprived critics see the uncertainty in planning for higher education documented: The status of a university of excellence, after the brief for sustainable development period be revoked, although the concepts are still stuck in the implementation and the quality of research and teaching in five years - if at all measurable - persists.

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology failed not because of its " highly acclaimed by the experts " future concept, but because it was the university did not succeed in the first five years to establish a cluster ( cross-disciplinary research network), which was viewed as worthy of support. That meant no second pillar but no ascent to the University of Excellence. Just the Karlsruhe University of composite with Max Planck Institutes was nationwide as an exciting model because the federal government (Cabinet Merkel II) wanted to get back into the top research universities.

What happens after the third Excellence Initiative in 2017, is unclear. Federal and state governments do not want a fourth initiative (as of 2012). The then Federal Research Minister Annette Schavan ( CDU) negotiated in 2012 with each country counterparts and officials from the science on the promotion of initiatives for at least ten years instead of just five. For a government promotion of permanent " facilities " rather than the temporary " initiatives " would be, however, a constitutional amendment is necessary and this would affect the independence of the federal countries.

One of the decisive ( and competent) critics of the Excellence Initiative belongs George Turner.

" The mixing of judgments about the services provided, based thereon applications and scenarios of administrative action leads to irrelevant results. This will lead to the end of the funding period in 2017 to a solidified tilt of the German university system. This means that more harm is done than by the most absurd projects in the 1970s. "

Loss of quality, disadvantages for " non-elite universities "

The German higher education landscape was divided. The work of the universities do not receive the seal of the " University of Excellence " is complicated by the now existing hierarchy between " elite" and " non-elite ". Students prefer elite universities compared to the normal, professors must teach only half as much and prefer them as well. In addition to the lower supply of ordinary universities with state money they have it too difficult to acquire outside. In width, which leads to a loss of quality in the German higher education landscape. The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote after the third round of the award: " But the competition to transform multi-billion dollar subsidy funds and efforts, colleges in efficient organizations and position them as commercial enterprises on the world market research, has its price: In the Shadow of the winner is now a group of losers, which could gradually assume the arguments for their existence. You will be left behind, even though they are urgently needed for an excellent education of 2.2 million students in Germany. That's the negative. "

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