Publikationen

The article presents the initiative for open jurisprudence “OpenRewi”. The original goal of the initiative is to create a supporting infrastructure and platform for legal scholars who want to publish textbooks and other teaching materials, as well as anthologies, monographs and commentaries openly, i.e. open access. So far, no infrastructure or platform has been established for Open Access book publications that adequately reflects the specific needs of legal publishing. OpenRewi takes up exactly this need and at the same time be an impetus for a reform of legal publication culture.

In higher education and beyond, the Covid-19 pandemic is considered to have accelerated digitalisation. While this acceleration is usually viewed in the context of the digital transformation that is characterised by its longevity, the permanence of pandemic-driven digitalisation requires investigation. Focusing on appointment procedures for professors, the qualitative study presented here employed expert interviews and group discussions to investigate how German universities responded to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic by furthering digitalisation. Analytically, it draws on the concept of synchronous and asynchronous communication as well as Luhmann’s understanding of decision programmes.

In the past legislative period, the federal state of Berlin dared to undertake several progressive legislative projects and reforms: In addition to the »Berlin rent cap« that failed before the BVerfG, the reform of police and public order law and the enactment of an independent Berlin Freedom of Assembly Act, the Berlin Higher Education Act was also modified in key aspects. Both in terms of higher education policy and law, the new provision of Section 110 (6) sentence 2 of the Berlin Higher Education Act (BerlHG) has caused a stir and attracted nationwide attention. For the first time, the norm provides for the mandatory deferral of postdoctoral positions for Berlin universities.

While demands for sustainable models of internationalization are a recurring theme in the debates on internationalization, it cannot be assumed that shared meanings underlie these discussions and proposed solutions. In the realm of the project INDISTRA, this opinion piece discusses how different understandings and drivers of internationalization might be at odds as HEIs are called to rethink their strategies and practices toward sustainable internationalization and provides some key strategies for implementing sustainable internationalization of HEIs.