Quality of German universities and research

Recently there was a short, interesting discussion about German universities on another thread that was interrupted by the mods.
I would like to say something on the significance of the shanghai ranking that is often referred to in these discussions.
One reason for the bad results of the German unis in this ranking is that in Germany most research is done in research facilities like the Max Planck- institutes or the Fraunhofer-institutes, that are independent from the universities. The conditions at these facilities and also the results are excellent, whereas the conditions for researchers at the unis are insufficient.

According to Prof. Peter Gruß, President of the Max Planck-Gesellschaft, German research is ranked third behind the US and the UK.

(The ranking Gruß refers to is based on the number of citations. In my opinion this kind of rankings isn't entirely objective either because it has a bias towards English-speaking countries. But it is probably the best kind of existing rankings. Germany has higher r&d expenditures as % of GDP than the UK on the other hand.)

I don't think the ARWU rankings are even that bad for German unis.

They compare well to other countries in their analysis.

That Ami unis are way better is beyond question, but Germany is not that bad compared to the rest of the world.

I work in this German system and I can tell you that publications and citations aren't all that accurate a forecaster either. The system here is built to churn out sub-par publications fast (every PhD has to have one or two or three) and then cite the hell out of your "partners in crime", but other places do this too (it is bad all the way around for everybody). The system here also stifles well rounded education and risk taking that leads to magnificent discoveries as well as spectacular failures. You need both and both make life fun. The biggest and bestest biotech companies in Germany are all run by scientists that went to learn their craft in the States at the likes of Amgen, Chiron, etc and that right there should be the biggest indicator that something ain't right with the way Germany trains their peeps. Germany's "on the job PhD" system will train you to do one and only one job well, but you don't stand a chance to compete with those that learn to do many things well. Except for writing a thesis, my Master's program at John's Hopkins wins hands down against any German program and that includes the PhD programs. However, Germany is trying and TU Freising has started a Master's in Biotechnology or Biochemistry program that turns out some very fine students. I would hire them in a heartbeat over some traditional University trained test taker.

Wanna make Germany competitive, get rid of the permanent positions! It is killing Germany's chances at powerhouse growth in all sectors.

Interesting. I agree with you that citing coworkers is counter-productive. I guess its just going to get worse now that people have easy access to stats on citations and all want to outdo each other.

Anyway, I didn't quite understand what you said here:


What kind of program was it (research or coursework or mixed)?

I just wanted to add my view to this topic. Perhaps the German universities have good faculty but the facilities are pathetic.

Here is a good example.

I am looking for a simple academic book The Volatility Surface , and lo behold, in the town of "Mainhattan" the financial capital of Germany, there are NO libraries which hold this book. Not even the "so sophisticated", Center for Financial Studies in Frankfurt. A German word simply summarizes the current situation of the university libraries and resources: Armselig.

A German friend once told me that most German Phd candidates choose to do research because either they do not get interesting opportunities (read a good job) after their FH or they do not want to decide what to do in life at that moment. May be a bit harsh, but this view has since been reinforced by candidates I have seen to be more busy in being the Professor's sidekick ( more than elsewhere in the world) rather than pursuing any specific direction. With an input like this, I would question the quality of the research system here.

I agree that German universities have too few resources (and too few faculty members), but one book simply isn't a good demonstration of that. That book is only held by 83 libraries in the US that are in the OCLC WorldCat system (which is almost all university/college libraries, but only some city/county public libraries). Not every library can have every book; that is why Interlibrary Loan (Fernleihe) is such a great thing. There are a number of German libraries with that book, so it could be easily obtained via Fernleihe.

In general, though, I agree with you.

I do also agree.

But, with all due respect: the book is a bad example, because it's a practioner's guide, doesn't look like scientific literature to me. I would guess that all university libraries have scientific literature primarily. (I might be wrong though. I just had a quick look at the cover)

German universities have far too low resources and faculty staff because far too much is funneled towards research sectors.
The recent "Elite Competition" is just more proof of that. Students do not benefit from this at all. Highly questionable in my opinion, especially since a lot of the universities doing well in this competition are also the ones doing the worst when it comes to the quality of university-student relationship.

The problem is somewhat that universities in Germany are in competition with the three big "public" think tank agencies, i.e. the Max Planck Society, Fraunhofer Society or the Helmholtz Society.

The Fraunhofer Society often ties its research institutes close to some university; for example, Fraunhofer staff in Darmstadt hold dual positions with TU Darmstadt. This is not the case for the local institutes of the Max Planck and the Helmholtz Society though; often, the local universities will even have institutes competing in the same field as the local Max Planck or Helmholtz Institute.

One note maybe: the Helmholtz Society is not very well-known outside their specific research circles even, despite being the biggest research agency in Germany with over 26,000 staff and 2.3 billion budget. This is because the 15 institutes of the Helmholtz Society do not publish under the "brand name", but under their institute name only (e.g. DESY, DKFZ, DLR, GSI etc), unlike the Max Planck or Fraunhofer institutes.

The re-branding of Helmholtz has just begun. Where I work, formerly GSF, is now "HelmhotzZentrum müenchen" and yes it is spelled that way on purpose.


My program was specifically designed for scientists working in the local biotech sector. It was a non-thesis program as most of us (except a couple of patent lawyers) were actually working in applied labs. This was a new program started in the early '90s and Duke was the second school to institute such a program near RTP. The courses were designed specifically for Biotech and besides the textbook and cutting edge lab classes, the emphasis was on formulating theories and means to test them (logical science). The teachers we had were intimately involved in Biotech and were the inventors of the standard tools used. My Computers in Molecular Biology class was taught by the NCBI people that developed BLAST and implemented its use on the "net" from the very beginning. It was a completely well rounded course as we learned everything from HTML programming to search algorithms to the computerized handling of large datasets to everything that was available at that time (the dawn of the WWW internet). Half the stuff we accessed was direct dial with a slow ass modem. I mean we had to gopher the list of numbers to be called to access the data for the coursework. At LMU, I gave a presentation on BLAST and FASTA and the particulars of each and all these PhD students had not a clue. Their knowledge was limited to "user" and default settings. Even the ones that knew a question to ask didn't really understand what they were asking. They had simply learned to ask a "good" question using the right words. It seems that asking a "good" question is highly valued here regardless of merit, intent or foreknowledge of your own damn question.

I tried to turn the tables on them here once and used the first 5 minutes of a seminar to show some slides and ask the audience members questions (most were PhD students with a few old fart scientists). I thought it would be fun and get them to start thinking outside the box before I showed my research data. Boy, was I wrong. What I did didn't fit the pattern and they all had a conniption fit. My boss was the worst of the bunch with the "that is just not how it is done" crap. In the long run, I think it might have actually worked on some level with the more progressive breed of scientists as they have since seemed to appreciate what I was trying to do. For the traditional farts, I doubt they will ever change.

You can tell the two sides apart quite easily though. Just say, "The next great discovery is only an accident away from happening" and wait for the response.
Progressive scientist: they get the joke and understand there is a lot of truth in that statement.
Old fart traditionalist: they are flabbergasted and say that all great discoveries take years of hard work, focus and dedication. They actually seem offended by that statement.

Funding questions aside, Germany needs more of the former and less of the latter, unfortunately the latter are locked into permanent positions, have "artificial status" and the transition is painfully slow. On the political side, this snobbish heirachical system is being fed by status-funding and not by a merit of proposal system.