Changes in the American and German Systems of Higher Education

A proposed new Academy study, to be conducted jointly with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, looks at the changing relationship between basic science research and higher education in both the United States and Germany. To be cochaired by Fellow Henry Ehrenreich (Harvard University), the study will look at the consequences of greater international collaboration on scientific projects, spurred in part by modern communications technology, and at the impact on higher education of growing opportunities for nonresearch careers in the high-tech industry. A winter planning meeting with German and U.S. scientists will lay out the next steps in the project.

This study is part of a broader set of interdisciplinary studies on common issues facing higher education in Germany and the United States. Changing German and American Higher Education and Research Systems: A Comparative Assessment, a book being edited by Robert McCormick Adams (University of California, San Diego), will report the results of an earlier study with the German-American Academic Council.

Back to the November 2000 Newsletter