1 Wilhelm Krull Europe's New Strive for Excellence in Research and ...

national competition in their respective fields of strength. This requires appropriate decisionmaking,
management and administrative structures for setting priorities in their competitive
environment. The university of the future bases its action on standards deriving from science
and research but it also has an obligation towards society with regard to its activities and with
regard to the return on funds invested in it” (p. 12).
Equally important was another recommendation of the “Cornerstones”, concerning the relationship
between university and non-university research institutions with its central ‒ and at
the same time highly controversial ‒ postulate: “In the interest of their ability to compete at
the international level, the universities must be strengthened through close cooperation with
or even structural integration of non-university research institutions” (p. 14). This recommendation
for the fall of institutional walls was applied by many concepts, most prominently by
the planned merger of the Technical University and the Research Centre Karlsruhe to form
the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology but also at Göttingen (and later on, following in its footsteps,
also at Dresden) through a Göttingen Research Council coordinating all the activities
across five Max Planck Institutes, a Leibniz Institute and a number of other institutions jointly
with the University (thus establishing the Göttingen Research Campus) as well as at Aachen
forming the Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance. Furthermore, new structural elements such as
Institutes of Advanced Study within universities have initiated an exciting process of prioritysetting
and career development. With the help of numerous inter-, and transdisciplinary centres,
clusters, and other organisational structures, it has been possible to coordinate research
efforts beyond individual institutions and to offer new opportunities for career development
based on tenure track options for junior researchers.
In several other European countries we find similar attempts to fostering excellence within
the respective universities. In Spain the initiative “International Campus of Excellence”
launched by the Spanish Ministry of Education in 2009 aimed at fostering the modernisation
and internationalisation of Spanish university campuses. It also focused on teaching, research,
and aspects of technology transfer. The ultimate goal in Spain has been almost the
same as in other European countries: To achieve greater international visibility of campuses
and to enhance international exchanges of students, academics, and researchers. Also in
Denmark and Sweden there were several attempts made to create excellent research environments
on top of already quite well-performing universities. The “Linnaeus environments”
in Sweden aimed at enhancing support for research of the highest quality that can compete
internationally and supported the respected units for up to ten years. That is also the time
frame for the Danish National Research Foundation’s programme on “Centres of Excellence”
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