The KU in 2030: New development plan

"With its special profile in research, the KU can and will contribute to actively shaping the future. To this end, it specifically encourages its researchers to reflect ethically on scientific work, uses its expertise to place new findings in social contexts, evaluates them, and thus also provides orientation and transformation knowledge for sustainable development", describes Prof. Dr. Jens Hogreve, Vice President for Research. Objectives in the area of research include stabilizing and increasing the volume of third-party funding and establishing a career center for researchers. The KU intends to further expand the funding opportunities for excellent research, taking into account the different needs and demands of heterogeneous subject cultures. In the future, the continuous documentation of research processes should enable access to the most complete representation possible of all relevant research data at any time. In order to achieve this, the University will implement a powerful research information system (FIS) to collect and process research information in the coming years.

With regard to aspects of knowledge transfer, the KU is guided by the idea, unique in Germany, of a "Committed University" that specifically places its scientific capacities at the service of the common good and creates a special climate that continuously brings science and society into exchange with each other in a creative way. Among other things, the development and establishment of a "Future Campus" at the Ingolstadt location focusing on the topics of digitalization, ethics and sustainability, as well as the recently completed establishment of the cross-location School of Transformation and Sustainability, will point the way for the future development of the KU transfer profile. As an integral part of the newly emerging Future Campus, the KU will also establish a science forum ("House of Science") for dialog with the public, which, by means of a broad spectrum of event and continuing education offerings, will serve as a regional platform for encounters with all groups of the population. In connection with this, a "Citizen Science Lab" is being established to firmly anchor the participation of citizens within the framework of cooperative and participatory projects at the KU. Another goal of the KU is to promote and consolidate the transfer of ideas, knowledge and technologies by institutionalizing an independent transfer office. Transfer activities shall thus be more closely integrated into the University's core processes and a higher proportion of academic staff shall participate in transfer activities.

In the area of studies and teaching, the KU is striving for further internationalization by expanding on its English-language course offer. In addition, the KU aims to provide its students with even more ideal support from enrollment to graduation. Prof. Dr. Klaus Meier, as Vice President for Studies and Teaching, emphasizes: "Students and faculty appreciate the excellent staff-to-student ratio with intensive personal mentoring. The KU's excellent study conditions have repeatedly been confirmed by high rankings in national and international comparisons." The main goal in teaching is to promote high-quality educational processes. To this end, the University will continue to develop its student-centered, individualized, but also collaborative teaching-learning culture, which also promotes intellectual independence and students' ability to reflect and engage in dialog in digitally supported formats. In addition, the KU wants to provide even greater support for the process of lifelong learning and establish open educational opportunities beyond traditional degrees. 

In the field of governance, the KU has set itself the goal, among other things, of digitizing all service processes and developing the potential of employees through targeted support measures. In terms of staff development, the KU also wants to further promote diversity in its teams.

The KU welcomes guests from all over the world and attaches great importance to its cosmopolitan academic and campus culture. "Only as an internationally outstandingly positioned University can it fulfill its mission in teaching, research and transfer", emphasizes the responsible Vice President for International Affairs and Profile Development, Prof. Dr. Klaus Stüwe. Even when compared to large universities, the KU has an excellent network of 300 partner universities in 65 countries, he said. Following on from this, in the area of internationalization, the KU wants to attract more international researchers to the KU and in turn offer its employees – as well as students – flexible opportunities to gain experience abroad.  Within the framework of the audit "Internationalization of Higher Education Institutions" of the German Rectors' Conference, the KU will carry out an assessment of its internationalization measures by 2025 and develop an institutional internationalization strategy based on this assessment.

With regard to location development and infrastructure, the KU intends to further increase the attractiveness of its study locations in the coming years by, among other things, creating agile and creative teaching and learning environments – for example, by setting up creative spaces or co-working spaces – and improving the quality of stay of these spaces, especially for students. It will also expand the digital infrastructure of seminar and lecture rooms across the University with a view to achieving a uniform standard. The use of immersive learning platforms and the increasing use of IT and AI tools for studying and teaching are not intended to replace the physical university campus, but to enrich and complement it through a balanced interplay of analog and digital teaching-learning formats.

In the area of sustainability, the KU has set itself the goal of becoming climate-neutral throughout the University by 2025 within system boundaries to be determined. Since 2010, the KU has had considerable success in the cross-cutting task of "sustainable development". With its second ten-year overall sustainability concept, it is one of the few pioneers in Germany to align the development of the entire University with the global goals of sustainability in the sense of a whole-institution approach. Sustainability is also an interdisciplinary research topic at the KU that is broadly anchored in all faculties. Institutions such as the School of Transformation and Sustainability will provide much greater support than in the past for the pooling of activities in the field of sustainability research. The KU considers students and alumni to be key shapers of sustainable development. It therefore advocates that education for sustainable development as well as the teaching of design and future skills be implemented as an integral part of teaching throughout the University, if possible in all courses of study.

Another cross-cutting issue is the area of equality and diversity. Here, the KU aims to improve the representation of women at all qualification levels in the long-term. With regard to female early-career researchers, the KU has been participating in a program of the federal and state governments since 2020, the measures of which are to be evaluated at the end of the funding period. A mentoring and coaching program will be permanently established to give the promotion of female early-career researchers at the KU a stronger profile and a clearer structure. Efforts are being made to apply for funding in the newly announced Professorinnenprogramm 2030 as well. In the future, the KU will emphasize the added value of diversity-oriented teaching more strongly and enable further individualization and flexibilization of learning in order to improve learning outcomes as well as successful courses of study, for example by expanding part-time courses or blended learning offers.

With regard to issues of family-friendliness and inclusion, the KU – following on from its long-standing commitment in this area – intends to further improve the working and qualification conditions for people with chronic illnesses and impairments. In order to enable student parents to take on family responsibilities alongside their studies, regulations for students with children are increasingly being integrated into the study and examination regulations, for example in the form of part-time study courses or through flexibility in module registrations. Family-friendliness also includes consideration of faculty members' family obligations when scheduling classes, as well as family-oriented meeting times for bodies of academic self-administration. Supporting students and employees with caregiving responsibilities will also require more attention in the future.

Background to the development process of the development plan

According to the Basic Rules of the KU, the Presidium is responsible for drawing up the development plan. However, the document was developed through a broad-based, participatory process. First, the faculties and institutions worked out development plans that formulated goals and priorities for their respective areas. Subsequently, the University Management transferred these ideas together with its ideas for profile development and further development of the KU into a draft, which was then discussed in the University committees – and after further revisions and additions – was adopted. The Extended University Management (which includes the deans and representatives of students, non-professorial academic staff, and academic support staff) commented on the draft in May. In June, the development plan was approved by the University Council. Agreement with the Foundation Council was finally established before the summer break in July. The votes were unanimous in all bodies.

The detailed finalized Development Plan was also translated into English and is available online atwww.ku.de/en/the-ku/profile/development-plan.