University research

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University research is research about universities . It is a young research area that can be defined as subject and practice-related. Despite the reference to the university as an institution, methods, approaches, questions and problems have developed.

University research is carried out on an interdisciplinary basis, including sociologists, lawyers, historians, business and economists, social economists, political scientists, administrative scientists, pedagogues and university didactics. There are also engineers, philosophers, literary scholars, geographers and others.

Thematic areas of university research

Due to the subject-related nature of university research, the range of topics is very wide. Various university researchers have tried to categorize this variety of topics. Ulrich Teichler distinguishes between four areas of knowledge:

  • Quantitative-structural aspects: for example admission, higher education in the elite or mass system, mobility, diversification and the relationships between the university and the employment system. This area mainly consists of university researchers who originally come from economics and sociology.
  • Knowledge and subject-related aspects: for example disciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity, general studies, academic versus professional emphasis on higher education, acquisition and use of knowledge, relationships between teaching and research and curriculum development. The original disciplines of the researchers working here are often education, the history of science and the sociology of science.
  • Personal or teaching and learning-related aspects: for example communication, professional and psychological advice, teaching and learning styles, students and teachers. The key disciplines here are usually education, psychology, but also sociology.
  • Institution, organization and governance: for example planning, administration, management, decision-making processes, financing, resource allocation. Lawyers, political and administrative scientists as well as economists, organizational sociologists and business administrators can often be found in this field of university research.

University research between research, practice and politics

An important decision about the way in which university research is carried out is the distinction according to the purpose of the research: whether it is carried out for research, policy (advice) or practice:

  • The research-based university research can be found normally in research institutions, faculties and departments. The theory and method orientation is characteristic.
  • The policy-related academic research prepares information and resources for policy decisions or analyze certain with the aim of the success and impact of policy decisions, reforms programs.
  • The hands-on university research than she assembles a certain degree of overlap for policy-related academic research information for decisions that are important for the strategy and policy-making. (Kehm 2005)

University research is generally a more practical scientific field. Accordingly, the three distinctive categories in the implementation are relatively close together, or to put it in the words of Ulrich Teichler: “There is probably no other research area in which the layperson - who in this case are also the practical decision-makers - the subject To be able to process in such a cognitively complex way that the advantage through systematics of analysis and size of object knowledge on the part of research appears to be smaller. ”(Teichler 1994, 169) Accordingly, one of the three areas cannot be said to be exclusive.

This aspect becomes particularly serious when it comes to giving current developments an analytical framework or designing prognostic scenarios. This is particularly evident in the precarious (non-) connection (Pasternack 2006, 105) between the results of university research and university development. The reason may seem confusing: On the one hand, the relatively manageable number of institutions (see below) prevents a multi-layered discussion of the subject of the university as a whole. On the other hand, the existing competition in the manageable field of work forces concessions in terms of claim, focus and effectiveness. This is bearable for contract work and studies on manageable, retrospective or summarizing topics, but not for a science-based development of the university.

University research as a subject

In contrast to the United States, courses in university research and management are still very young in Germany and Europe. Since the late 1990s, a number of courses have been set up in Germany. The increasing need for professionally trained university managers has driven this professionalization of university research. There are currently at least 5 universities in Germany that offer courses in university research and university / education management. All courses are offered exclusively at master's level and, with the exception of the courses at the Humboldt University in Berlin and the University of Hanover, are designed as part-time continuing education courses.

Other relevant courses in Europe are:

Research institutions for university research in Germany

Although the institutional base of university research in Germany is still quite small, there are a number of research institutions - at and outside universities - in German-speaking countries that deal with university research, university didactics or university management:

Higher education and educational research institutions

University didactic centers in Germany

  • Center for Learning and Knowledge Management at RWTH Aachen University
  • Interdisciplinary center for university didactics at Bielefeld University
  • Working Group for University Didactics (AHD)
  • Office for higher education didactic training and advice at the Free University of Berlin
  • University Didactic Center, Technical University Dortmund
  • University Didactic Center of the University of Essen
  • Center for University and Continuing Education, formerly: Interdisciplinary Center for University Didactics Hamburg
  • Center for University Research and Quality Assurance (ZHQ), University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg
  • University Didactics Center of the Universities of Baden-Württemberg (HDZ)
  • Center for University Didactics of the Bavarian Universities of Applied Sciences
  • Competence center for university didactics for Lower Saxony at the TU Braunschweig
  • University Didactic Network Central Hesse (HDM)
  • University Didactic Center Saxony (HDS)
  • University Evaluation Association South-West

Professional associations

In Germany, the Society for University Research (GfHf) is still very young. It was founded on the initiative of the six leading research institutions at the Society's first meeting in May 2006 in Kassel.

The international Consortium of Higher Education Researchers is older . It was founded in 1988 at its first conference in Kassel. The aim of this international network is, in addition to exchange, the further development of the theoretical basis of university research, international research cooperation and the regular organization of conferences.

literature

  • Ulrich Teichler : University research. Situation and Perspectives. In: The higher education system . 4/1994, pp. 169-177.
  • Barbara Kehm: Make your surroundings an object. Kassel University Research and the Master’s degree in Higher Education. Lecture as part of the lecture series "Introduction to the Kassel Profile" on June 2, 2005, Kassel 2005.
  • Peer Pasternack : What is university research? (PDF file; 2.5 MB) In: The higher education system. 3/2006, pp. 105-112.
  • A. Scholkmann, B. Roters, J. Ricken, M. Höcker (eds.): University research and university management in dialogue. On the practical relevance of empirical research about the university. Waxmann, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-8309-1967-4 .
  • Andrä Wolter : University research. In: Heinz Reinders, Harmut Ditton, Cornelia Gräsel, Burkhard Gniewosz (eds.): Empirical educational research. Subject areas. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17847-9 , pp. 125-136.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Research goals - Leibniz Research Center for Science and Society. Retrieved July 3, 2020 .