国际化视角下的德国”卓越计划”

An international perspective on the German Excellence Initiative

本文考察了世界强国德国的大学排名表现。论文引用率和其它一些衡量指针数据显示，德国大学未能获得良好的国际认可。本文还分析了德国对此种情况的反应，包括其世界一流大学发展战略。这一战略是集中投入大量资金，试图使一小部分大学在研究和知识创造上取得更好的成绩和更大的国际影响。这种策略来自于对美国和英国一流大学策略的借鉴。但是我们还需意识到，拥有一些顶尖大学和拥有一个优秀的大学体系是两回事。当今所有国家都需要更多拥有更多具有技术能力与创新精神的专业人员，以此发展经济和提供公共服务。如果将优先目标设为与哈佛大学竞争，而不是建设一个庞大且有效的高等教育体系，这将是一个错误的判断。卓越品质，即使是世界一流水平的卓越，也只是有效的教育体系的一个方面。

In every country in the world， politicians， scholars， university administrators and others are concerned with the quality of their nation’s universities. In this article， I look at the way in which one major world power， Germany， has reacted to the realization that its universities are not regarded as excellent around the world， and that this judgment is supported by data on citations and other measures. The German government has reacted to this awareness by putting significant sums of money into a small number of universities to sharpen and deepen their excellence in research and scholarship. This approach imitates that taken in the United States and the United Kingdom. In these countries， which dominate university rankings， most research money goes into a small number of elite universities， which also attract the best─qualified students. But we need t realize that there is a difference between having a few top universities， and having a good university system. In the modern world， all nations need a growing supply of skilled， innovative professionals， to build their economies and to run public services. It would be wrong to prioritise competing with Harvard above having a large， effective higher education sector. Excellence， even oh the world stage， is only one aspect of effective education.