In Berlin today, the International Panel of Experts for the Evaluation of the Excellence Initiative (IEKE) presented its report and recommendations for a future funding program. For continuation of the Excellence Initiative, the IEKE proposes two funding lines: Excellence clusters and an excellence premium. The President of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Professor Holger Hanselka, says:
“The Imboden Commission confirmed that the Excellence Initiative has made the German university system more dynamic. We highly welcome IEKE’s unanimous opinion that the successor program should focus even more on strengthening world-class research and improving the international competitiveness of German universities. The recommendations to enhance university differentiation and strengthen university governance and autonomy are a clear positive signal for our universities’ viability and capability of taking strategic actions. The proposed longer duration of the initiative of seven to eight years creates space for sustainable strategic acting.”
Apart from excellence clusters, the Imboden Commission has proposed a second funding line, an excellence premium for universities. KIT President Hanselka comments: “This is a target-oriented and transparent approach to implementing long-term strategies and to preventing universities from having to constantly “re-invent” themselves. It will now be a challenge to find reliable and transparent criteria in cooperation with the universities.”
The report of the Imboden Commission can be downloaded on the website of the GWK (Joint Science Conference) at:
http://www.gwk-bonn.de/fileadmin/Papers/Imboden-Bericht-2016.pdf (in German only)
The press release of the Baden-Württemberg State Rectors Conference (LRK) can be found at:
http://www.lrk-bw.de/index.php/pressemitteilungen (in German only)
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