The university presidents and Minister of Science Clemens Hoch launched the new University Forum of Rhineland-Palatinate at the kick-off event at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. The kick-off event marked the official launch of the new communication format between the universities and the Ministry of Science and Health. The University Forum is intended to strengthen the development of higher education in Rhineland-Palatinate by enabling the state and state universities to work as partners to devise strategies for the further development of the higher education landscape in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Successful launch of the Rhineland-Palatinate University Forum
“We are facing a number of challenges in the higher education sector in Rhineland-Palatinate, which we can only tackle by joining forces. I am therefore particularly pleased to be able to celebrate the launch of the new University Forum today. In the new University Forum, the state and universities intend to work together to tackle these challenges by promoting the overall development of the higher education system in a regular dialog and discussing cross-university topics even more intensively at one table,” said Science Minister Clemens Hoch.
Prof. Dr. Michael Jäckel, Chairman of the State University Presidents' Conference (LHPK) and President of Trier University: “Inflation has indeed already found its way into strategic decisions. Who isn’t making this claim these days? But the University Forum is now in line with what the Rhineland-Palatinate Higher Education Act already laid down in the fall of 2020 as a joint platform for regular exchange. The State University Presidents’ Conference also meets regularly, of course, but must mainly devote itself to day-to-day tasks: numerous agenda items, limited discussion time. In the University Forum, this ratio is intended to be the other way around. This requires a clear agenda and good collaboration between the university presidents and the Ministry. Universities and universities of applied sciences are very aware of their particular mandate for the state and want to show that competition also includes working together.”
“As real-world laboratories for socially relevant topics, the universities in Rhineland-Palatinate provide answers to important questions about the future. The universities of applied sciences make their contribution by providing practice-oriented education and by delivering the results of application-oriented research, which are translated into innovations in collaboration with practitioners. To be successful, universities and universities of applied sciences must have the opportunity to continuously evolve. I am therefore delighted that in the future, the University Forum will create a platform in which this further development can take place on an ongoing basis together with the Ministry of Science,” said Prof. Dr. Susanne Weissman, Deputy Chairperson of the LHPK and President of Mainz University of Applied Sciences.
The new University Forum has already begun its work as part of the kick-off event. The university presidents discussed with the Minister what the university of the future might look like. In a collaborative exchange, they identified location marketing of Rhineland-Palatinate as a university region, internationalization, sustainability, digitalization, and IT security as topics that the University Forum will focus on extensively in the coming months.
In the future, experts from the universities and the Ministry will work together on specific issues in themed working groups set up by the full University Forum as needed and report regularly to the full Forum. This will enable the Forum to create a productive and continuous exchange between universities and the Ministry.
The University Forum is anchored in the Higher Education Act as an instrument of university development planning.