Negotiations on the Higher Education Pact

It was actually supposed to have been signed at the beginning of February: the new Hessian Higher Education Pact, which stipulates the funds that all state universities will be able to plan with from the state budget from 2026. The Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Research, the Arts and the Arts (HMWK) now expects the first submission of the decisive budget planning data for the coming years in June at the earliest. The higher education pact should then be signed at the beginning of July.

The Hessian university presidents are taking a critical view of the renewed delay in presenting reliable budget figures for the Higher Education Pact. However, they also see the state government's efforts to ensure adequate funding for Hesse's universities with their 250,000 students and around 34,500 employees as well as the approximately 15,500 employees of Hesse's university hospitals.

Prof Thomas Nauss, spokesperson for the Conference of Hessian University Presidents (KHU) and President of Philipps-Universität Marburg, states: "With the agreement to defer investments totalling 475 million euros from their budgets, the universities have contributed significantly to the consolidation of the state budget in 2025. In view of the increased costs for personnel and material resources, even constant budgets make sensitive cuts in research and teaching unavoidable. Any further burden on the universities would jeopardise their substance and reduce their performance in research, education and transfer in the long term."

Prof. Karim Khakzar, President of Fulda University of Applied Sciences and spokesperson for the Hessian universities of applied sciences (HAWs), also emphasises: "We urgently need planning security for our universities, but we now hope that time will be used to create a sustainable and competitive funding model, also in a national comparison, that does justice to the important statutory tasks of universities and compensates for current and future pay rises and cost increases."

Prof Elmar Fulda, President of the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) and spokesperson for the Hessian universities of the arts, added: "We expect that further talks will manage to produce a higher education pact that admits scope for creative and innovative development and guarantees reliable working conditions. The universities are sticking to their demand that wage increases be fully taken into account and that an annual dynamisation of at least four percent be planned."

The 14 universities are focussing on the academic competitiveness of research and education in the state of Hesse, which is at risk of falling further behind strong federal states and in international competition. This has consequences for the state's research, innovation and creativity potential, for the education of urgently needed top specialists for Hesse's business, for teacher training and for the university studies and employment situation at the 14 state universities themselves. The additional time must therefore be used for fundamental improvements. "With the extension of the negotiations, we are calling for the right and sustainable course to be set for the Hessian science system," concluded the presidents.