Professor Lehmkuhl, as part of the Transatlantic Degree Programs Project (TDP) you completed three years of research on cooperation in transatlantic higher education. How important is academic cooperation for the transatlantic partnership?
Education and research have an important role to play. Politicians now realize that universities have long since become important actors in the shaping of inter-state relations. A paramount example of this is the German-French University. More recent developments, such as the establishment of a German-Turkish University or the creation abroad of Houses of German Science, testify to the importance attributed to collaboration in education and research. The partnership between Europe and North America also has to be consistently expanded. One could consider founding a Transatlantic University, where the brightest students could be educated and suported all along the way, from Bachelor’s degree to the postdoctoral level.
How many joint study programs and double degree programs are there at German and North American universities?
Based on the first figures that we gathered in Germany in the context of the TDP Project in 2006, German universities reported 39 transatlantic study programs in which students pursued their courses at two or more universities, finishing with a joint or double degree. Our recently published study on joint programs between European and American universities clearly shows three-digit figures, with an evident upward trend. 85% of the universities on both sides of the Atlantic that took part in our survey want to expand their joint and double degree programs. Most of them are aiming for transatlantic programs.
What cooperation models seem the most promising?
The findings of our study indicate several important trends. When establishing such study programs, bottom-up processes are decisive. Cooperation between individual university teachers usually forms the basis on which such processes are initiated. To be successful, however, they also need to be integrated into the overall context of a university and receive support from the administrators – which of course applies to both partners. One should also have clear ideas about the potential of such programs. Many refer to these study courses as “elite programs”, because the demands made on the students are usually much greater that in normal courses. Anyone expecting three-digit participant figures will most likely be disappointed.
How can cooperation in transatlantic higher education become more established in the future? What recommendations do you make to the universities?
We do not like to make general recommendations, given that joint and double degree programs evolve in very different contexts. What is possible at one university can meet with insurmountable obstacles at another. In any case, one should be clear about the fact that a joint study program takes time to mature, both in the development and in the implementation phase. And if you want to attract students who are particularly high achievers with international joint or double degree programs, then you will have to develop the corresponding strategies. At the Free University, such measures are being supported, for example, by our field offices in Beijing, New Delhi, Moscow, New York and Brussels.
