More collaboration, more transfer of knowledge

The recommendations are to be incorporated into the state's further higher education development planning, the Framework Agreement VI (Rahmenvereinbarung VI) and the individual structural and development plans of the individual universities. In the coming months, in-depth information meetings are planned at all university locations. First, however, the paper will be forwarded to the Science Committee of the Thuringian State Parliament.

The recommendation paper of the "Higher Education Development 2030+" working group is divided into five areas: "Higher Education Institutions in Society", "Knowledge Acquisition and Transfer", "Higher Education", "Higher Education Organisation" and "Financing and Building Infrastructure". Among the proposals contained therein are:

• a stronger profiling of the individual colleges and universities in order to strengthen their competences and further improve their visibility nationally and internationally;
• closer cooperation in areas such as administration, IT services, library and archives;
• an expansion of academic continuing education courses to better benefit from the demand for in-service course offerings and the trend towards lifelong learning in the future;
• a greater role for universities as "regional innovation engines" by strengthening knowledge transfer to the economy and society and
• new financing models and simplified procedures in university construction.

In the area of teaching, the universities would have to adapt to a growing heterogeneity of backgrounds and living situations of the student body. This involves designing course offerings flexibly, incorporating innovative topics and trends (such as digitalisation and sustainability) into the curricula, introducing new digital teaching formats and improving individual student support – for example, through approaches such as academic mentoring.

The WG "Higher Education Development in Thuringia 2030+" also proposes a joint, state-wide continuing education programme for higher education didactics. Furthermore, special achievements in knowledge transfer should be recognised with a "Thuringian Teaching Award". And finally, unique selling points of Thuringia's higher education landscape, such as the excellent supervision ratios, also in a national comparison, and the strong focus on the engineering sciences, should be used even better in future to raise the profile of Thuringia as a higher education location overall.