International students offer Germany great potential. They make a decisive contribution to ensuring innovation and competitiveness. This makes it all the more important that employers, universities, politicians and all other stakeholders continue to intensify their efforts to ensure the successful transition of this group of people into the labour market and their integration into society. This is the central objective of a new position paper by the University/Business Working Group of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA), the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and the HRK.

The future of European research funding was on the agenda of the General Assembly of the HRK, having already been the subject of intensive discussions at the HRK’s recent EU Strategy Day in Brussels. With the aim of increasing the competitiveness of the European Union, the EU Commission is considering a fundamental reorganisation of innovation and research funding from 2028. The HRK welcomes, among other things, plans to double the funding for the European Research Council (ERC). At the same time, it criticises the idea of abandoning the tried and tested Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

At its meeting, the General Assembly of the HRK reaffirmed the universities’ commitment against all forms of anti-Semitism. The Assembly also welcomed the fact that the German Bundestag is committed to protecting Jewish life and is also recognising the many efforts made by universities and the HRK in this regard. In a resolution, however, the HRK members criticise the fact that the implementation of a university-specific resolution currently being considered could lead to an impairment of academic freedom and university autonomy.

In a recent reaction, Prof Dr Walter Rosenthal, HRK-President commented as follows on the break-up of the ’traffic light’ coalition between the SPD, the FDP, and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen: “The end of the coalition government is a turning point. In times of extensive challenges at national, European and global level, education and research policy needs also to be clarified quickly. This applies directly to the next federal budget and also to the work of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) until a new, stable governing majority is in place. We cannot afford a prolonged phase of uncertainty and of simply continuing the administration. The issues that need to be addressed are too big and urgent.“

HRK President Walter Rosenthal welcomes the clarity of the Federal Constitutional Court’s recent decision on the German Federal Training Assistance Act (Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz; BAföG). In response to a question on the compatibility of the amount of the 2014 and 2015 BAföG basic assistance with the German Basic Constitutional Law, the ruling dealt fundamentally with the entitlement to state benefits intended to enable university entrants without financial resources to study.

The President of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), Prof Dr Walter Rosenthal, has criticised the Russian Ministry of Justice’s decision to classify the German Association for East European Studies (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde; DGO) – an interdisciplinary academic society – as “extremist”. He noted that this marks a new low point in already severely restricted Russian-German academic relations, because every DGO member travelling to Russia is now potentially threatened with arbitrary criminalisation and prosecution. In addition, any exchange, even private, between DGO members and Russian academics could jeopardise their safety.