02 - Germany - Ongoing debates and future developments

Since the beginning of the 1990s and not least against a background of inadequate financial and human resources at the higher education institutes, the Federation and the Länder have increased their efforts to modernise and internationalise the higher education system in Germany. The reforms are aimed at facilitating differentiation by deregulation, performance orientation, increasing the autonomy of higher education institutions and creating incentives, hence also enhancing the international competitiveness of the German institutions of higher education.

In order to implement these goals, reforms have been and still are introduced and carried out on the structure of higher education study and the internal organisation of institutions of higher education. Detailed state control is increasingly being replaced by the autonomous decision-making of higher education institutions. Deregulation has significantly increased the freedom of higher education institutions in terms of their organisational and staffing decisions. The higher education institutions are increasingly taking on the national and international challenge. In joint target agreements, the state and the institutions of higher education cooperatively define the services to be provided, but without specifying concrete measures. The target agreements are also used as control elements within the higher education institutions. The growing autonomy of the higher education institutions is, for example, also demonstrated by their entitlement to select applicants for admission.

Since 2005 the Länder have been free to decide on the imposition of financial contributions from students. A number of Länder made use of this option for the first time in the winter semester 2006/2007 by imposing study fees ranging up to Euro 500. Parallel student loan systems provide that loans only must be repaid once the course has been completed and in case of adequate income.

As part of the Excellence Initiative of the Federation and the Länder for the Promotion of Science and Research in German Higher Education Institutions ( Exzellenzinitiative des Bundes und der Länder zur Förderung von Wissenschaft und Forschung an deutschen Hochschulen), the Federation and the Länder support scientific projects run by universities and their cooperation partners in the higher education sector, in extramural research as well as in the private economy. In detail, until 2011 additional funds totalling Euro 1.9 billion are provided in the funding areas

• research schools for the promotion of scientific talent,
• excellence clusters for the promotion of leading science and
• future concepts for top-class research at universities.

In October 2006, the decisions on funding applications from higher education institutions in the first round of funding of the Excellence Initiative were made.

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