Academic Governance in Germany: Paving and Patching the Road to Excellence in Higher Education

Zelinka, Jozef; Parreira do Amaral, Marcelo; Jergus, Kerstin

Abstract

The chapter discusses changing academic governance in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Germany. As the higher education sector expanded, research has catalogued well the many transformations in the environments of universities, but in particular in internal academic governance and their impacts on their missions. The new reality of universities as organizational, rather than genuinely collective actors, has brought about changes at different levels, thus transforming national and institutional traditions and forms. Research attention has also been devoted to examining their impact on disciplinary and professional dimensions of academic governance. Beyond responding to international and European influences, developments at the policy and at the institutional levels impacted substantially on academic governance in Germany: The German Excellence Initiative program, the revision of Länder legislation to enhance autonomy and promote innovation, the introduction of university boards as well as the strengthening of the role of presidents are but few examples. The chapter presents and discusses the implications of these changes and deliberates on the challenges, threats, and implications for academic governance in Germany. We organize the chapter along three main sections. In the first section, we offer a brief description of the features and of the historical development of academic governance in Germany. In the second section, we present and discuss international and European influences shaping German academic governance and report on recent developments at national and institutional levels. In the third section, we deliberate on challenges, threats, and effects that refer to institutional and individual dimensions of academic governance. We round the chapter with brief concluding remarks on the changing nature of academic governance in Germany.