Conditions and Prospects in Higher-Education Policy Planning

Abstract

I have taken the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the University of Bielefeld to ask whether this university has been able to fill the role originally ascribed to it and develop a commensurate identity. This reflection on an innovative concept and its special background conditions should not, however, sidetrack me into reproducing a mood in terms of which the present situation is lamented, and the founding years, in which Utopias and experiments were still called for, are acclaimed. Rather, I should like to attempt a critical balance sheet and, on its basis, sketch some indications of future prospects and the problem-solving potential of the University of Bielefield.