Europe Inches Forward on Higher Education Reform, Focus: Germany

Advance economies entered an era of mass higher education in the second half of the 20th century. This profound social achievement is a putative cause of an emerging knowledge-based economy that places a high premium on human capital, and is driving modern nation states to improve the quality and efficiency of postsecondary education. Although such efforts are occurring worldwide, developments in Europe in recent years have been particularly dramatic, and perhaps nowhere more so than in Germany is home to more than 100 universities, most with doctoral level authority. Therefore, a primary challenge has been differentiation of role and mission. Broad stakeholder participation supported the German government in designing an "Excellence Initiative" to strengthen its university sector. Investing more than $6 billion, the government worked with the German Research Foundation and the Science Council to mount an ambitious competition, strengthening research throughout the university sector and also selecting a limited number of promising universities for intense funding. Two successive competitions were held, on culminating with awards in 2007 and the other in 2012. A total of 14 universities received the large "future-oriented" grants, 6 for each of the ten years, and 8 for each of five years. The competition relied on evaluations by internationally renowned scholars, of whom more than 85% were citizens of nations other than Germany. Implications for Germany are discussed, along with lessons for the United States.