Science council reflects on Higher Education Pact

Scheme helped grow student numbers and “emphasised cooperative action instead of competition”

Germany’s €39 billion Higher Education Pact was the “most extensive funding programme for the German higher education system to date”, according to the Wissenschaftsrat, a science and humanities council that advises the government. 

The pact, which ran from 2007 to 2020, “helped to stabilise a higher education system that had been strained by numerous reforms. It emphasised cooperative action instead of competition and it strengthened the higher education system’s overall ability to change,” said council chair Wolfgang Wick in a statement.