The HRK and the German National Association for Student Affairs (DSW) are appealing to the federal government and the federal states to ensure that university operations and social services offered by student services organisations can be maintained during the coming winter term 2022/2023, even in the event of an energy or gas shortage. Germany's approximately 2.9 million students must also be taken into account in possible state aid against inflation and the energy price crisis.

Anja Steinbeck, Rector of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, will remain spokesperson for the Universities Member Group of the HRK and in this capacity also Vice-President of the HRK. In the elections for the Member Group's spokespersons last Wednesday in Berlin, the legal scholar was elected for a second term of office without any dissenting votes. Volker Epping, President of Leibniz University Hannover, was also confirmed in office as deputy spokesperson of the group.

Peter-André Alt will relinquish his office as President of the HRK on 31 March 2023 and thus before the regular end of his second term of office. From 1 April 2023, Alt will be responsible for the establishment of a new research foundation in Berlin as its director. With an annual funding volume of up to €25 million and a programme strongly oriented towards top-level research, career paths and internationality, this foundation is to be developed into one of the key players in the field of research funding in Germany in the coming years.

At its closed meeting in Berlin, the Universities Member Group of the HRK adopted proposals for the further development of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act (WissZeitVG) and called for supplementary measures. The aim of the discussion paper is to make academic career paths more plannable and predictable, in such a way that employees receive certainty earlier than under current law as to whether they have good prospects of permanent employment in academia within the framework of their qualification process, which includes the doctoral degree and an initial postdoctoral phase.

What will change and what will remain the same after almost four semesters of online-based distance learning at German universities? More than 200 students, teachers and employees of higher education support institutions came together at the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex – a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Essen – for HFDcon 2022, the fourth network day of Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD, the German Forum for Higher Education in the Digital Age), to discuss good higher education teaching post-COVID-19.

This year, several German universities will make their premises and infrastructure available to refugees from Ukraine who are interested in studying in order to conduct standardised examinations for admission and continued studies at Ukrainian universities. The online examinations will take place between 22 July and 3 October 2022 in uniformly defined periods at six locations in Germany.