Academics fear policy stasis as Germany heads back to polls

After the collapse of the German government earlier this month, sector leaders fear long-awaited initiatives to boost innovation and tackle academic precarity will be abandoned, with progress potentially suspended for months while the country establishes a new coalition.

Germany’s three-way “traffic light” coalition – comprising the “red” Social Democratic Party (SPD), the “yellow” Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens – disintegrated after chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD fired finance minister and FDP leader Christian Lindner amid a dispute over the country’s budget. Several FDP officials subsequently resigned, including higher education and research minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger.

Previously scheduled for autumn 2025, federal elections are expected to be brought forward and will likely take place in the spring, with Mr Scholz leading a minority government in the meantime. Succeeding Ms Stark-Watzinger, Cem Özdemir, minister for food and agriculture, is now also responsible for the ministry of higher education and research.

Thomas König, a political science professor at the University of Mannheim, told Times Higher Education that the now-defunct coalition, in his opinion, “did not set particular policies that improved research or funding conditions in Germany”.

However, Frank Ziegele, executive director of the Centre for Higher Education, said some progress had been made, pointing to the establishment of an automatic yearly funding increase of 3 per cent for universities as well as the continuation of the Excellence Strategy, which provides financial support for cutting-edge research.

The proposed German Agency for Transfer and Innovation (DATI), a funding instrument for knowledge transfer, was a “very positive development”, Professor Ziegele said – but the agency’s fate is now uncertain after the government’s collapse. A funding boost for digitalisation, meanwhile, has also failed to materialise.

Andreas Keller, vice-president of the German Trade Union for Education and Research (GEW), lamented the coalition’s failure to pass a reform of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act, known as the WissZeitVG, which regulates fixed-term employment for early-career researchers. “The members of parliament should now thoroughly revise the current draft amendment and pass it before the federal president dissolves parliament,” Dr Keller said.

Among GEW’s demands are the provision of “permanent positions for permanent tasks”, the establishment of “binding minimum terms for temporary contracts” and the abolition of an existing ban on collective bargaining. A revised law should also mandate “compensation for disadvantages for academics with caring responsibilities or disabilities”, as well as the assurance of “reliable prospects for postdocs” via permanent contracts or positions, said Dr Keller.

With upcoming federal elections and the coalition negotiations that will inevitably follow, a period of uncertainty awaits German higher education and research – although the sector was no stranger to instability, according to Professor König, who commented: “Despite programmatic pledges, uncertainty has become the standard, since higher education generally depends on public funding.”

Professor Ziegele told THE that “a new government maybe won’t be effective before May, or so, of the coming year. This will mean that until May, nothing happens – no new strategies.”

“That time will be lost,” he added. “And we don’t have time to lose.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com