Elite Through Rankings – The Emergence Of the Enterprising University

Abstract

A little more than a decade ago, 1994, the Center for University Development (CHE) began its mission to organise the ‘revolution’ (Umbruch) of the German higher education system. In other European countries such as the UK and the Netherlands this process was already well under way. The German science system, being more hierarchical and less responsive to the public than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts and additionally burdened with the structural conservatism of a federalist regime, was reluctant and late in reacting to the introduction of numerical indicators, evaluations and rankings to universities and research institutes.