Academy and Studying in Germany

What is the multi-billion euro Excellence Initiative doing for German universities? At the end of October an interim report on the elite funding programme is supposed to answer this question. But researchers already agree: the programme is successful and should be continued. There is harsh criticism from the eastern parts of Germany – and from students.

James Gross is one of the German elite, even if he dislikes the word. The 33-year scientist is a junior professor at the Rhineland-Westphalian Technical University (Rheinisch-Westfälisch Technischen Hochschule / RWTH) in Aachen. He owes his position to the fact that three projects of the RWTH scored well in the first round of the Excellence Initiative two years ago. In the second round in 2007, the RWTH was even named one of the nine German elite universities. For Aachen, that alone means 180 million euros additional research money up to 2011. And with it, a good many new positions for particularly good researchers like James Gross.

“Elite one way or the other”, says Gross, “what is important for young scientists is that they can grapple with their ideas in the right surroundings and acquire experience”. And he draws a positive initial balance: “The Excellence Initiative has made it possible for me to teach and conduct research independently very early in my career.”

A lot of money for the best research

Gross studied computer engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and the University of California. In the Aachen excellence cluster “Ultra High Speed Mobile Information and Communication” (UMIC), he is now in charge of developing computer simulations that can be used for evaluating the performance of mobile communication networks. This is a task that can be carried out only by interdisciplinary means and in world-wide contact with colleagues. “Being embedded in a cluster provides the necessary degree of competition and co-operation”, stresses Gross. And that is quite the intention of those who devised the elite competition.

In the Excellence Initiative, science and politics together give 1.9 billion euros to elite universities with outstanding strategies for the future and projects that either offer a particularly good doctoral programme (“graduate schools”) or link research at various universities (“excellence cluster”). The German Council for Science and the Humanities was in charge of evaluating the strategies for the future; the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft / DFG) of evaluating the clusters and graduate schools.

The victors draw a positive balance

Up to now nine universities may call themselves elite on the strength of their strategies for the future. This has brought them not only a good deal of money, but also a clear boost to their image. It is therefore no wonder that politicians and representatives of the competition victors agree in their interim assessment. To have received the distinction of being chosen an elite university attests that the University of Munich “is one of the leading universities in Europe”, says, for instance, its president, Bernd Huber. “The know-how and creative intelligence of our scientists and scholars form the foundation of our success.”

Federal Minister of Research Annette Schavan (CDU) confirms that the competition has triggered “a tremendous dynamics in the German system of research”. She has repeatedly stressed that the Excellence Initiative should not remain a “mere episode”. In plain language this means that, although the first two rounds of the competition are over and the promised monies distributed, the programme should somehow be continued.

Will it work?

Schavan’s political lip service to the Initiative is a signal that it has gone down well above all with the participating scientific and scholarly organisations. At the beginning of July 2008, the German Council of Science and the Humanities and the German Research Foundation already pressed for the continuation of the elite competition. After all, “the expectations at a structural level have already been exceeded”, as a joint statement of the two organisations puts it. In the next round, they recommend that the total funds be increased by 20 to 30 percent.

Is that enough? Hans Weiler, former professor at the American elite university Stanford and former rector of the European University of Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder, had already raised his eyebrows at the sum of 1.9 billion euros. “Whoever thinks German universities can be made internationally competitive with such a sum”, he says, “should revisit his arithmetic class”. Weiler likes to explain to Germans that, for the current five-year period alone, Stanford University has a budget of over 2.2 billion euros for research. The 1.9 billion euros of the Excellence competition has to be distributed among approximately 80 bigger and smaller projects and plans at various universities.

A wigging from the students

Critical voices have been heard particularly from the eastern parts of Germany. The Initiative has been “extraordinarily successful”, admits Jan-Hendrik Olbertz, Minister of Scientific Affairs in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, but the eastern states have not been given due consideration. If the federal government and the states do not develop strategies to counter this split in German research, says Olbertz, he sees in it “a considerable risk potential for the future”. Another frequent criticism is that the competition up to now has focussed exclusively on the research rather than the teaching at universities.

Student representatives have voiced the most radical assessment. The Excellent Initiative, scolds the student umbrella organisation, The Free Association of Student Bodies (Freier Zusammenschluss von StudentInnenschaften / fzs), has been “absolutely counter-productive for the next generation of scientists and scholars”. As a result of the Initiative, its declaration of protest maintains, “the majority of students will receive distinctly less support and a second-class education because of worsened research and teaching conditions at universities”.

Federal Minister of Research Schavan refuses to be pressured by these criticisms. Asked about the continuation of funding for the Excellence Initiative beyond 2011, she responds with demonstrative composure: “We shall be setting course for it next year.”