by Reinhard Folk

Only nine years after the University Act of 1993 – without any evaluation of the 1993 reform – the new government decided to change the university law again. This so called “reform” was driven by the ideas of the “New Public Management” and neo-liberal policy: The universities should become responsible for their own concerns (fully legal autonomy) while the state’s responsibility would be reduced to financing the universities on the basis of performance agreements (Leistungsvereinbarung). Teaching and research are considered satisfying demands of customers (students as customers of university teachers, and industry as customers of university researchers). Since the university law of 1975, the ‘curia’ of professors, the junior faculty (Mittelbau), the students, and (since 1993) the non-faculty personnel were organized into distinct federal institutions to accompany the democratically-organized self-administration of the universities. Apart from the students’ institution, the others have now been abolished while the ‘curia’ has been retained.