In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities in Germany are faced with the challenge of holding the upcoming final examinations at the end of the current winter semester in a legally incontestable manner. In a rapidly changing pandemic situation, they need to be able to respond flexibly and highly adaptively and offer attendance-based or digital examinations. The HRK touched on this. HRK President Peter-André Alt: “The federal states still need to resolve existing legal uncertainties surrounding digital examinations with appropriate regulations to allow universities sufficient scope for action."

In view of the ongoing significant restrictions on university research caused by COVID-19, which may have to continue into the upcoming summer semester, the Executive Board of the HRK defined the action needed from both universities themselves and the federal government, federal states and other funding providers. Since spring 2020, research work has frequently been interrupted or restricted due to the pandemic, in many cases affecting collaborations with external partners.

The President of the HRK, Peter-André Alt described the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union as a watershed in the cooperation between German and British universities. The withdrawal was finally completed at the end of the transition phase on 31 December 2020. “By fundamentally altering the well-established framework of traditionally close British-German university relations, Brexit threatens British-European and hence British-German university cooperation at its very core,” the HRK President said.

Students and trainee teachers as well as qualified educators need to be better prepared for the diversity of the students they teach. It was with this aim in mind that the HRK and the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK) adopted the joint recommendation “Educating teachers to embrace diversity” in 2015. At a joint virtual meeting of the two Executive Boards, they have made an interim assessment of progress and are now to publish a joint report.

The Federal Statistical Office has just reported that over 2.9 million students and 489,000 new students are enrolled at German universities for the current winter semester. HRK-President Peter-André Alt commented: “The number of students is even higher than last year’s record level, with the number of newly enrolled students continuing to approach half a million. The sustained high demand for study places is an expression of confidence in our universities and the long-term prospects offered by higher education, a confidence which has not been lessened by the coronavirus pandemic."

The heads of state and government of the EU member states reached a compromise on the design of the rule of law mechanism in the future allocation of EU funding. This means that the outcome of negotiations on the European Union’s next seven-year financial framework can be finalised in time for the coming year. HRK-President Peter-André Alt commented on this development.