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This paper aims to outline the main higher education reforms in Germany, including the implementation of the Bologna Process. It takes as its focus the doctoral phase, conceptualised by "Bologna" as the third cycle of study but held by many to be the first phase of independent scientific research. In the context of increasing internationalisation of higher education and the European Commission's forecast that 700,000 more researchers will be needed (European Commission, 2003), it is vital to get the reform of the system right. The paper considers the effects of the German Higher Education Framework Act and regional laws as well as those of the Bologna Process on Germany's ability to recruit and train national and international doctoral candidates in the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalisation of higher education implies the application of a neo‐liberal market forces model based on competition and choice. This is happening in Germany by gradual stages, and is often, but not necessarily correctly, assumed to be antagonistic to the Humboldtian model that underlies the classical German university tradition. This paper reports a survey which showed that staff and student role relationships were permeated by paradoxes and mutual incomprehension, and that the goodwill, dedication and respect of the professors towards their students were being wasted due to deficits in organisation and structure. Freedom, an integral part of the Humboldtian model, was much more beneficial to the staff than to the students, many of whom called instead for better guidance and course structure. The professors were sceptical about some features of re‐structuring such as more executive leadership on the part of their management, and did not want their institutions to be run like enterprises—though they did want them to have more autonomy. About one third were willing to accept a diminution in state power. The system seems at a stage where the advantages of the Humboldtian model are being 'delivered' only incompletely, and the potential of a market model has not yet been fully realised. Humboldt was himself an intellectual predecessor of neo‐liberalism, and would not have been opposed to the notion of a reduction in state power, even though this runs counter to the present 'German model'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries around the world have witnessed educational expansion at all levels, leading to the massification of tertiary education and training. Tertiary education has become a major factor of economic competitiveness in an increasingly science-based global economy and a key response to shifts in national labour markets. Within the EU, the reform of skill formation systems has been advanced by the Lisbon strategy, with the Bologna and Copenhagen processes in higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET) articulating and diffusing overarching goals in European skill formation. If European benchmarks call for at least 40% of all 30- to 34-year-olds to hold a tertiary-level certificate, Germany exhibits a relatively low proportion of each cohort entering HE and attaining that qualification level (28%). We analyse this 'German exceptionalism', locating a range of factors in the educational system: the institutional logic of segregation, the structure of secondary schooling, the division or schism between the organisational fields of VET and HE, and limited permeability throughout. Regardless of isomorphic pressures that led Germany to quickly implement undergraduate bachelor's (BA) and graduate master's (MA) courses of study, these factors limit the extent of HE expansion visible among other European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, an international comparison study investigated the organization and management of university continuing education (UCE). The Finnish continuing education system proved to be especially advanced in this study. On the other hand, it became clear that Germany was still lagging behind in continuing education. In this article, German and Finnish universities are compared with respect to organizational forms and management structures in order to derive potentials for UCE and to identify decisive factors of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how far (and by what practical means) the growing global trend for universities to commit to sustainable development has spread across German academia. Following this introduction, part 2 will outline the political framework of the sustainability discourse in German higher education. Part 3 will emphasise the integration of sustainability principles into universities’ operational practices and institutional missions through teaching and research. Part 4 discusses Eco-Audits for universities as a promising step towards sustainability. That the commitment to becoming a sustainable institution is not without its challenges is described in the final section, part 5, by a case study of the University of Lüneburg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]