Prof. Dr. Volker Reuter, Rector of the Ulm University of Technology, will be the first chairman of the association.
It has been a long, arduous, but ultimately successful journey for HAW in Baden-Württemberg. Now the conditions for a successful implementation of the further development clause of the State Higher Education Act (§ 76 para. 2) have been created at the constituent meeting of the HAW association required for this purpose.
Following the publication of the administrative agreement between the Ministry of Science and the universities at the end of June, the HAW doctoral association is now capable of acting as a result of the board elections, and the conditions for awarding the right to confer doctoral degrees to the association have thus been created.
The association's assembly, in which the universities are represented by rectors, presidents and chancellors, elected Prof. Dr. Volker Reuter as founding chairman. Also elected to the four-member founding board were:
The mood at the first meeting was as solemn as it was relieved, as the HAW in Baden-Württemberg were thus able to take a long-awaited developmental step that confirms, recognizes and decisively strengthens the research performance of this type of university.
The quality assurance of the doctoral procedures in the association is guaranteed by binding processes, legal and university standards. The core element is a quality-guided selection process of professors involved in doctoral studies, based on proof of research. Only through proof of research strength and sufficient research activities can they be admitted to the association's doctoral center for a limited period of time. This also means that the proof must be provided and checked again and again.
One of the strengths and special features of Baden-Württemberg's path to an HAW doctoral degree is that it does not allow every university, every faculty or even every professor, but it does, in principle, allow all professors with proven research strength in the type of university direct access to and exercise of the independent right to award a doctorate. It is therefore not a matter of which university and which department one has been appointed to, but solely of one's own individual research performance. However, the strength and resilience of this must first be proven. There will be no automatism or participation in anticipation of a high level of research activity, nor will there be a permanent granting of this privilege. HAW and the state are thus jointly setting a transferable example of responsible handling of the right to award doctorates. Since 2014, consistent quality assurance and strict selection have already been lived and tested in the HAW research network BW-CAR, which will be merged into the association's doctoral center in September. These "BW-CAR metrics" were also one of the guiding principles for the award of an HAW doctoral degree in Hesse (2016) and in Saxony-Anhalt (2021).
Also in September, the science committee of the state parliament will deal with the topic as provided by the legal regulation. After this referral, the formal award of the right to confer doctorates to the association by the Ministry of Science or Minister Bauer should be possible in the near future.
Press contact HAW BW registered association:
Benjamin Peschke managing director universities for applied sciences Baden-Wuerttemberg registered association.
Hospitalstrasse 8 70174 Stuttgart + (49) 711 995 281-60
