Competition Brings out New Strengths
Some people see dishonesty at work in the way that politics gives with one hand and takes with the other. But the award-winning projects suggest that some ideas for the future and some interdisciplinary projects would not have developed were it not for the competition. The fact that doctors, psychologists, philosophers, mathematicians, biologists, linguists, and legal scholars have come together to form “The School of Mind and Brain” to examine the broad impact of brain research will bear fruit far beyond the external funding rankings.
The competition is also bringing out new strengths. Dresden, for example, is making great strides in becoming Germany’s center for stem cell research and regenerative medicine. A DFG research center for stem cell research, a thematically related DFG special research group, and a Max Planck Institute with an active stem cell research program already exist there. These are now being supplemented by a graduate school for biomedicine and bioengineering as well as the Excellence Cluster entitled “From Cells to Tissues to Therapies.”
Putting Forth an Utterly False and Dangerous Conclusion
Dresden also deserves special attention because it is the only winner from eastern Germany. In the coming years, the most important research policy battles will be fought there and in the northern states, which, all together, will receive only fourteen percent of first-round funding for centers of excellence. Some finance ministers are just waiting for a reason to cut back their research expenditures in order to balance their ailing budgets.
It is utterly false and dangerous to conclude that “not excellent” automatically means “second class,” and that second class does not deserve funding, but that is the indirect message of the competition. Research representatives have to succeed in convincing budget experts that there are no peaks without mountains, and that an ascent is possible. Otherwise, things could look bad for the future in northern and eastern Germany. Maybe Schleswig-Holstein’s science, economy, and transportation minister Dietrich Austermann’s angry response to the results was not only an expression of provincial egotism but also apprehension about the dangers that come along with excellence marketing.
Is the Funding Encouraging or Discouraging?
At a discussion forum this Tuesday evening in Berlin, warnings against a “new lower class” of universities were becoming audible. Federal research minister Schavan rejected such speculations as pure nonsense, but she still has to show how the federal government and federal states will help the weaker ones take advantage of their opportunities for advancement. This is a particularly important question as regards the continuation of the Competition for Excellence beyond 2011. If money flows to Munich and Karlsruhe for the next twenty years, then the overall impact of the competition could be more discouraging than encouraging.
For now, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. The introduction of the overhead cost allowance, which is based on the Anglo-Saxon model, is one thing that has offered particular relief to academics when it comes to everyday matters. Successful scientists who effectively raise third-party funding used to have to get their universities to cover their additional related costs for personnel, administration, and equipment. This often didn’t help their popularity since it took available resources away from others. In the excellence competition, there is an automatic twenty percent overhead cost supplement. Schavan wants to expand this to apply to all research funding.
Source: Christian Schwägerl, “Exzellenzwettbewerb. Die neue Forschungslandschaft,” FAZ-NET, October 19, 2006.
Translation: Allison Brown
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