Springer Nature and MPDL Services GmbH on behalf of Projekt DEAL today announce that the formal contract for the world’s largest transformative Open Access (OA) agreement to date has been signed. Dated 1 January 2020, the agreement provides OA publishing services and full reading access to Springer Nature journals to scholars and students from across the German research landscape. It follows the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the two parties on 22nd August 2019, and is a giant step forward in the OA transition, enabling greater visibility, impact, efficiency, transparency and sustainability in the dissemination of the fruits of German research, for the benefit of researchers everywhere.

The proportion of degree programmes on offer subject to admission restrictions remains stable at around 40 per cent. This is a finding from a survey by the HRK. In the current 2019/2020 winter semester, admission restrictions applied to 42.3 per cent of the around 10,500 undergraduate programmes on offer. This means that the proportion has remained virtually the same (2018/2019: 42.1 per cent). To compare: ten years ago, in the 2009/2010 winter semester, more than 52 per cent of undergraduate programmes on offer (those that lead to an initial professional qualification) were subject to admission restrictions.

"It's time for the Federal Government to strongly advocate the investments in research and education planned by the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen," said HRK President Peter-André Alt in the run-up to the Council of European finance ministers on the EU Financial Framework. "In light of the enormous challenges and uncertainties that Germany and Europe are facing, it would be unjustifiable to cut the budget for these sectors that shape our future. However, finance ministers and government leaders have tended to do exactly that."

On Wednesday evening, Alexander Rinke, Martin Klenk and Bastian Nominacher were awarded the German Future Prize 2019 by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier for their project "Process Mining – Schlüsseltechnologie für die Zukunft der Arbeit und Wertschöpfung in Unternehmen" ("Process Mining – Key Technology for the Future of Work and Value Creation in Companies"). The HRK had nominated the team for the prize at the start of the year.

The Federal Statistical Office reported the number of students and new students at German universities as being 2.9 million and 508,000 respectively for the current winter semester. HRK-President Peter-André Alt stated his views on this: "The persistently high student numbers continue to pose a challenge to universities. Once again, more than half a million young people have commenced higher education programmes. Universities have an obligation to offer suitable conditions for studying to each and every one of them, especially decent support through adequate numbers of teaching personnel."

The more influential the positions in the research system, the lower the proportion of women. This sobering assessment was made by the General Assembly of the HRK. "We need to bring an end to this trend once and for all. On these grounds, the HRK has now put forward proposals to counteract the great inertia of the research system in this area," explained Professor Dr-Ing. Petra Maier, Rector of Hochschule Stralsund - University of Applied Sciences and member of the working group that compiled the draft of the paper, to the press.