At the state universities in Hesse, the proportion of permanent scientific and artistic staff is to increase by 30 percent by 2025 compared to 2018.

In addition, the student-teacher ratio should improve: Instead of 72 students as in 2017, a professor should only be responsible for an average of 61 students in three years.

This emerges from the target agreements on which the 14 state universities have agreed with the Ministry of Science and which were signed on Thursday.

Sasha Zoske

Sheet maker in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

The agreements supplement the university pact that was concluded between the state and universities for the years 2021 to 2025.

They set goals that universities, art schools and universities of applied sciences want to focus on in the coming years.

How much money they get from the state also depends on whether these targets are met.

In addition to increasing the proportion of permanent employees and improving the staff-teacher ratio, the self-imposed goals include more sustainability in all areas and promoting academic success through better teaching.

sustainability and permeability

Science Minister Angela Dorn (Die Grünen) said the agreements were the result of a strategy process in which the universities, with the help of external experts, "openly analyzed their strengths and weaknesses in order to derive courageous consequences for a sharper profile".

The Center for Higher Education Development has described the Hessian way of setting university-specific goals as a "quantum leap in science policy" that strengthens the individual responsibility of the universities.

As explained by the ministry, annual "milestones" are defined in the agreements for each university for six goals.

Certain amounts of money from the Higher Education Pact only flow if these requirements are met.

Each university was free to choose two particularly profile-forming goals, and they all have two quantitative and two qualitative goals in common: In addition to the specific definitions of permanent positions and staff-student ratio, these are increasing permeability in the education system and promoting sustainability.

Dorn said more needs to be done, especially for students whose parents are not academics and whose first language is not German.

According to Tanja Brühl, spokeswoman for the Conference of Hessian University Presidents, the universities want to further increase the attractiveness of Hessen as a research location by recruiting excellent scientists and expanding collaborative research.

According to their chairman, Frank Dievernich, the universities of applied sciences will increase the number of professors and mid-level faculty, thereby significantly improving the student-teacher ratio while the number of students remains the same.

It is also planned to further expand the right to award doctorates.

According to their spokesman Bernd Kracke, the art academies in turn want to set new priorities in teaching - for example on contemporary orientation, social responsibility and sustainability in art.