The Senate of the HRK has unanimously affirmed its commitment to making health protection an absolute priority in the organisation of the upcoming winter semester. It was completely undisputed that universities are and want to be attendance-based institutions – now and in the future. However, it considers the call for an immediate return to face-to-face contact to be inappropriate given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Academic standards in teacher education are non-negotiable for cross-sector and lateral entry into teaching. This was stressed by the Senate of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) in a resolution issued, which noted that there should not be any “second-class teachers” with quality and acceptance issues due to inadequate further education.

The University of Chicago and the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) will present a virtual conference on free expression. “Freedom of Expression: On the Culture of Debate at Universities” will examine the state of free debate and open discourse at universities in the United States and Germany, in light of recent controversies on many campuses and their political ramifications. Legal and academic scholars will explore questions such as whether there are limits to free speech and the best ways to protect the principles of free expression.

The application and admission procedure through the Stiftung für Hochschulzulassung (SfH) (Trust for Admission to Higher Education) has been facilitated for the 2020/21 winter semester thanks to the joint efforts of the universities, the SfH and the federal states. The following dates have been established: On 1 July 2020, the SfH will open its application portals. The final application date for new school leavers with the Abitur for the centralised procedure is 20 August 2020 for the 2020/2021 winter semester.

A reliable database is key to successfully developing the internationality of a university. The new indicator portal “HSI Monitor – Profile Data on the Internationality of Universities” enables universities in Germany to access a multitude of internationalisation indicators. The portal is a joint project of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK). It is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

One month into the online 2020 summer semester, HRK President Prof Dr Peter-André Alt provided a positive initial assessment but also addressed the need for further action: “Universities have widely been very successful in transitioning to digital teaching formats. This is predominantly down to the phenomenal yet exhausting efforts of teaching and administrative staff. In many cases, universities had already laid the foundations long before the coronavirus crisis by training staff, expanding their digital infrastructure and continuously developing online teaching formats within the limits of their possibilities."