Anti-corruption and reporting of violations

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Anti-corruption

Reporting legal violations within the scope of the Whistleblower Protection Act (HinSchG)

Anti-corruption

Anti-corruption officer

  • Reporting, information and contact office for information on corruption and all matters relating to the fight against corruption at the University of Erfurt.
  • Examination of information on corruption and detecting cases of corruption
  • Measures to prevent corruption
  • Promotion of employee awareness through counselling and education

Contact persons

Name
Position
E-Mail
Phone

Latest news

Project Korruptionsgefährdungsatlas (corruption risk atlas)

The anti-corruption officer and her deputy have drawn up a corruption risk atlas for the University of Erfurt, which is to be kept up to date in the future. The state of Thuringia has obligated its universities to do this with the "Guideline for Combating Corruption in the Public Administration of the Free State of Thuringia" of 10.01.2019.

With this atlas, on the one hand, particularly corruption-prone areas of the university were identified in order to be able to derive suitable preventive measures for the protection of the employees there and for the protection of the university itself. Furthermore, the measures already taken and examples of good practice for the prevention of corruption at the University of Erfurt were also made recognisable.

The University of Erfurt's corruption risk atlas was presented to the Presidential Board in April 2022. As a result of this, training and further education opportunities for the university's employees on this topic are now to be examined, among other things.

Forms, information and circulars

Guidelines

The following legal provisions and further information on anti-corruption and the prohibition of accepting rewards, gifts and other benefits must be observed:

Templates

Circular

Film by the Leitstelle Korruptionsbekämpfung (Anti-Corruption Unit) on the topic of "Corruption

On the occasion of World Anti-Corruption Day, the Thuringian Anti-Corruption Unit has published an explanatory film on the topic of corruption. The film presents the topic in a comprehensible and pictorial way. In addition to the aspect of corruption prevention, attention is drawn in particular to the applicable regulations prohibiting the acceptance of rewards, gifts and other benefits. The film is aimed at both the employees of the Free State of Thuringia and interested citizens with the aim of raising awareness of the issue of corruption. Corruption is not a trivial offence, but a punishable crime. Corruption damages the public's basic trust in the independence, incorruptibility and ability to act of the state and its officials. In addition, corruption often results in high financial losses, which are borne by the general public. For this reason, regular preventive and educational measures are important in order to prevent corruption offences at an early stage or to better recognise and report them.

to the Film

Note

If you have concrete evidence of corrupt behaviour at the University of Erfurt, please inform the anti-corruption officer or your superior. Also support the university management in recognising problematic or faulty organisational structures that favour corruption, other taking of advantage or unlawful behaviour. Please contact the Anti-Corruption Officer if you have any comments or suggestions for improvement.

By doing so, you can help protect your own integrity and the university' s, and help to uncover and clarify corruption, risks, malpractices and violations of the law. Help to ensure that damage to the image of the University of Erfurt can be averted at an early stage.

Your information will always be treated confidentially.
You can contact the anti-corruption officer via her e-mail address, via the telephone numbers mentioned or via her direct postal address. In addition, she is of course available - by appointment - for a confidential personal discussion.

Reporting legal violations within the scope of the Whistleblower Protection Act (HinSchG)

Internal reporting unit for staff to report violations of the law

An internal reporting office has been set up at the University of Erfurt in accordance with § 12 of the Law for Better Protection of Whistleblowers (HinSchG). According to its name, the law regulates the protection of natural persons who have obtained information about violations in the course of their professional activity and pass this on to a reporting office set up for this purpose (so-called whistleblowers).
The internal reporting office receives information from staff about violations in the professional context or tips about corresponding violations,

  • which are punishable by law,
  • which are subject to a fine, insofar as the violated regulation serves to protect life, limb, health or the rights of staff or their representative bodies, or
  • violations of federal and state legislation as well as directly applicable legal acts of the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community in specified legal areas (e.g. combating money laundering; environmental protection requirements; regulations on the procedure for awarding public contracts, etc.).

Contact persons

Only the following persons are authorised to receive reports, give re-registrations and initiate follow-up measures:

Name
Position
E-Mail
Phone

Further information

Reporting channels

  • The following e-mail address has been set up for the internal reporting unit, to which only the named persons have access: hinweisgeber-meldestelle@uni-erfurt.de
  • Please send your letter directly to the internal reporting unit (postal address: Nordhäuser Str. 63, 99089 Erfurt).
  • In addition, you have the possibility to submit verbal reports by phone or to initiate a personal meeting at any time (for contact details see above).

Your reports will of course be treated confidentially; however, please note the exceptions according to § 9 HinSchG. We kindly ask you to refrain from anonymous tips.

In order to ensure prompt processing and to avoid unnecessary queries, please describe the information and the underlying facts as precisely as possible. Verbal comments will be summarised and documented in the form of a note or by a complete and precise transcription of the wording in the form of a protocol. As the person providing the information, you will be given the opportunity to check the note or the protocol, correct it if necessary and confirm it with your signature.

Alternatively, you can make an external report to the competent authorities at the state, federal or EU level.

Procedure

Upon receiving the report, the Reporting Office will

  • first acknowledge receipt of the report and check whether it is competent in the matter or whether a special-law reporting office is competent,
  • then check whether the report is valid and credible; if necessary, obtain further information while respecting confidentiality,
  • then, if necessary, examine and take appropriate follow-up measures.

All information, procedural and testing steps as well as results and measures are documented accordingly by the reporting office, while maintaining confidentiality, data protection and data security. Suitable technical and organisational measures have been installed for this purpose. Please note the information on data processing pursuant to Art. 13 and Art. 14 of the EU Data Protection Regulation.

Recommendations for electronic communication with the internal reporting unit

In order to ensure confidential electronic communication with the Reporting Office, it is recommended to use an anonymised e-mail address (without a clear name) and to choose an anonymised subject.

The University of Erfurt's mail system generally works with transport encryption. Please ensure that you also use transport encryption when sending e-mails. If you would also like to encrypt the content of your e-mail, you can find the certificate here: Zertifikat mit dem öffentlichen Schlüssel der internen Meldestelle für den Versand der S/MIME-verschlüsselten E-Mail.

If you do not make use of the option to encrypt by certificate, encryption of the content of your e-mail cannot be guaranteed.

Alternatively, you can send an encrypted zip file or encrypted pdf file as an attachment. To do so, please inform the internal registration office of the respective password by telephone.

FAQ

Which reports are covered by the Directive's scope of application?

Due to the fact that the EU Whistleblower Directive has not yet been transposed into national law, the factual competence of the internal reporting office currently refers in particular to European law (cf. in detail Article 2 para. 1 in conjunction with the Annex Parts I and II of the EU Whistleblower Directive). For the current legislative procedure, please see: https://www.bmj.de/SharedDocs/Gesetzgebungsverfahren/DE/Hinweisgeberschutz.html .