The Excellence Initiative was agreed by the federal and state governments in 2005. It is meant to simultaneously support top-flight research and Germany’s higher education system as a whole, including its international competitiveness. The initiative was evaluated by an international commission of experts earlier on this year.
The commission gave the scheme a positive appraisal but stressed that continuing it beyond 2017, when it expires in its present form, would require adequate funding levels. The agreement now reached enables 11 institutions to be funded as 'Universities of Excellence' with a total of €533 million (US$593 million) a year over a seven-year period, starting in 2019.
The City State of Hamburg originally threated to veto a continuation, arguing that the system was not sufficiently dynamic. The compromise reached now is that the 11 universities of the first phase undergo rigorous evaluation after seven years, which would probably result in some of them dropping out of the scheme. There would then be calls for new proposals. A minimum of four new universities taking part would be guaranteed, that is, funding might have to be spread among more than 11 universities. Hamburg is satisfied with this solution.
The heads of governments have approved two further programmes to support smaller universities and universities of applied science and junior academics, providing a total of around €1.5 billion, also on a competitive basis. The programme for junior academics is to run from 2017 to 2032 and has been allocated around €1 billion to secure 1,000 tenure-track professorships. After the 15-year joint funding period, federal support would cease and further funding would be continued by the respective state government.
The outcome of the negotiations has been strongly welcomed by Horst Hippler, president of the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, which represents the heads of higher education institutions. Hippler maintains that universities are willing to compete for extra funding and they regard the new programmes as an opportunity to become more competitive internationally. “Any postponement, let alone failure to reach an agreement, would have been a huge disappointment,” Hippler comments. “This is an acceptable solution for all sides.”
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