Science policy had a dangerously low profile in the German election

http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/sep/23/german-election-science-policy

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Science policy was not high on anyone's agenda in the German election campaign, to put it mildly. Of course the political parties all mentioned it in their manifestos, pledging to continue the story of the successful German science system, perhaps with some modification here and there. The media did not question the lack of debate, and why would they? The system seems to work well as it is, and the issue didn't seem to be important to the electorate.

But the former is only partly true; the latter, if true, is wrong-headed. It is true that the German public research system has seen an astonishing level of funding despite the financial pressures on public budgets. This has sent a strong signal about the importance of science and technology, and should not be downplayed. The system has a strong functional differentiation (which other countries are seeking to copy) and while the level of co-operation between the different actors in the system is far from perfect, it has been improving and remains firmly on the policy agenda. A number of initiatives have increased the incentives for organisational competition and better strategic thinking with regard to research and provided further funds to cope with short term capacity needs in universities, as well as stable and increasing funding for non-university research organisations.

However, there remain structural issues that need to be tackled if Germany wants a powerful science and education system that will deliver into the future. The biggest of these, in my view, is the shortage of long term capacity in the system, especially in the publicly financed science system.

While the debate in Germany centres around the current student overload for universities, the longer-term demographic trends are gloomy. And there are developments under way that are counterproductive. There is a push from all political parties for an ever higher proportion of the next generation to go through universities. There have been incentives to push the practice oriented fachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences) more and more towards being research active, to converge towards university profiles. All the major incentives in universities are pushing towards excellence in research rather than in teaching. All of those developments are instrumental in undermining the highly differentiated educational system in Germany, with its "Facharbeiter", "Meister" and well trained engineers.

At the same time these developments put further pressure on universities and those who seek to build an academic career. Some observers, including the former federal minister for cultural affairs (kulturstaatssekretär) and member of the Social Democratic Party Julian Nida-Rümelin, have raised concerns, but such voices are few (and Nida-Rümelin was immediately slapped down by the SPD general secretary, who insisted on the policy of expansion).

Rather than undermining the German model of differentiated education by flooding universities and hoping something good will come out at the other end, Germany needs to develop attractive career streams and systematically open up to highest international talent. The country needs to make radical changes to the career tracks and incentive structures for young academics, to encourage the most talented to choose and remain in an academic career in Germany.

However, the academic career track in Germany is less and less attractive: young academics have to put up with increasing pressure to publish or perish, while dealing with sky-rocketing student numbers. And younger academics remain entirely dependent on the patronage of a single professor, rather than being able to develop as a member of a group or department in their own right. As with academics in other countries, they must be prepared to move around from position to position until perhaps their late 30s before a permanent job becomes a prospect. The German Science and Humanities Council, an advisory body to the federal government and the Länder, is looking at these issues, but these are early days, and the lack of any meaningful voice in the political debate is worrying.

Further, the biggest science system in Europe remains unattractive to foreign talent. On top of the generally poor incentive structures in the system there is still a strong reluctance to offer courses and degrees in English. In many universities the infrastructures to attract and deal with foreign students and staff are underdeveloped. The German Rector's Conference (the equivalent of Universities UK) has started a pilot initiative to support universities to develop internationalisation strategies. But current efforts to make German universities more international are half baked at best, too little and too tame.

The current complacency in the German science policy debate is dangerous. The system is under multiple long-term capacity pressures. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater and overwhelming universities while at the same time weakening the tertiary education system more broadly, Germany must have a real debate about what it really means to have a high quality, highly differentiated tertiary education system that really fits the long-term needs of the German economic model, the science system and society.

Jakob Edler is professor of innovation policy and strategy and director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the University of Manchester. Prior to coming to Manchester he was head of the department of innovation systems and policy at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), Germany

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