Target agreement for the Hessian Higher Education Pact 2021-2025 signed

The signing of the Zeil agreements took place yesterday (17.3.) at the University of Kassel. State Secretary Ayse Asar represented Science Minister Angela Dorn. This was preceded by a strategy process in which the universities defined which goals they would like to focus on in particular. Central elements for all of them include a better student-teacher ratio, the expansion of permanent employment, an increase in student success and a strengthening of sustainability in all areas of action.

"Our Hessian Higher Education Strategy is based on reliability, equal opportunities and courage: with the record volume of the Hessian Higher Education Pact of 11.5 billion euros and base funding that grows reliably by four percent every year, the universities are given real room to maneuver. And we have reliably agreed on concrete goals, including better teaching with good employment conditions, a better student-teacher ratio and fairer educational opportunities," explained Angela Dorn. "At the same time, we set up and also financially supported a strategy process with the universities in which they openly analyzed their strengths and weaknesses with the help of nationally recognized experts in order to derive bold consequences for a sharper profile. I am very pleased that the universities have shown this courage and, on the basis of the recommendations, have decided which strengths they want to strengthen in particular and which challenges they want to tackle and how. This is now reflected in the target agreements, which set individual goals and milestones for each university."

Annual milestones have been defined for each of six goals, the achievement of which is rewarded financially; certain amounts of money from the Higher Education Pact therefore only flow if they are achieved. Each university was able to select two particularly profile-forming goals individually; two quantitative and two qualitative goals are common to all: expanding the permanent employment of academic and artistic staff, improving the student-teacher ratio, strengthening permeability in the education system and promoting sustainability. All 14 universities commit to increasing the total number of permanently employed academic and artistic staff by 30 percent compared to 2018, while aligning the percentage of total academic and artistic staff within their respective university group. The supervision ratio is expected to increase from a total of 72 students per professorship in 2017 to 61 students per professorship.

Kassel University President Prof. Dr. Ute Clement commented, "The target agreement with the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts provides the university with a reliable framework for its development in the coming years. We have discussed and decided on the goals set out in it in a long process with the university's bodies, in particular the Senate. The central strategic goals include the development of the Kassel Institute for Sustainability across the breadth of the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the expansion of the research focus on materials science at the nano, molecular and micro levels. The quality of studies and teaching is to be strengthened, graduate support is to be expanded, especially after the doctorate, and the opportunities of digitization and transfer are to be used in a targeted manner. The construction of the Natural Sciences at Holländischer Platz represents a central building project."

Many other goals have emerged from the strategy process, in all areas of university activity, study and teaching, research, transfer, internationalization, human resources development, digitization, sustainability and construction development planning. "We have also agreed on concrete goals for good teaching and academic success, because herelies the key to educational equity, especially for students whose parents did not study, whose native language is not German, who come to their studies not from school but from a job - they should all be able to develop to the best of their abilities and thus contribute to developing solutions to the challenges facing our world," said Minister Dorn.

This text is based in part on an announcement by the HMWK.