Criticism of the Excellence Strategy: Less money, more freedom of research required

The Excellence Strategy has been controversial since it existed. Their original goal of establishing a German Harvard was illusory from the start. There was and is far too little money available for this. In view of the Trump administration, it is now less the means than the freedom of research that German universities can score with.

Shortly before the announcement of the five newly added associations and individual universities, four researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich suggested in this newspaper that the original goal of a narrow international peak should be brought closer again. This could be done by supporting a very few universities or through a subject group-specific competition across location boundaries.

Considering that no university - not even those with a title of excellence - is at the top in all subject areas, it would be more realistic to organize a subject-specific competition. The students would also benefit from this: they would have clues to help them decide where they can best study their subject. There is also another problem: the universities' basic funding is too tight compared to the third-party funding that needs to be raised. The Excellence Strategy further reinforces this deficiency. The possible access of extreme state governments to project-related funds weakens the resilience of universities.