Individual university contracts for the period until the end of 2027

Markus Blume, Minister of Science and the Arts, summed up: "This is the final point of the largest university offensive of all time: Our universities are setting themselves ambitious goals with the greatest possible planning security - this is how the entire diversity and excellence of the Bavarian scientific landscape unfolds in the 33 individual university contracts! As the Free State of Bavaria, we are accompanying and supporting the universities in particular with the continuation of our 5.5 billion euro high-tech agenda and a further increase in the strategy funds. In this way, Bavaria remains the No. 1 science state!"

In the agreements between the Free State and its universities, the individual institutions set many innovative accents on mega-topics such as digitization and sustainability, in addition to their clear priorities in the core areas of study and teaching, research, and transfer. In this way, they concretize for the individual institutions the requirements of the framework agreement Universities 2023 to 2027 - Agility, Excellence, and Innovation for Bavaria's Higher Education Landscape, which ushered in a new era of strategic university management in June.

As an instrument of higher education governance, the higher education agreements replace the target agreements introduced in 2006 - an important step in the implementation of the new Bavarian Higher Education Innovation Act (BayHIG). In this context, the principle of modern outcome-oriented management anchored in the framework agreement is continued in the university contracts with individual, binding, and profile-building objectives.

The Free State is supporting the achievement of these ambitious goals with substantial financial contributions: The strategy fund resources were increased by 10 million euros to almost 55 million euros per year. This means that a total of around 275 million euros in strategy funds will be available for profile-building measures at universities until the end of 2027, subject to the respective resolutions of the budget legislature.

Professor Walter Schober, THI President and Chairman of Hochschule Bayern e.V., commented as follows: "By signing the individual university contracts, we are committing ourselves to realizing ambitious goals and thus making our contribution to the further development of Bavaria as a location for science and also for business. In addition to the necessary resources, we look forward to degrees of freedom that BayHIG opens up for us to implement these goals."