送交者: flour 于 2006-1-23, 17:55:28:
Nature 439, 249 (19 January 2006) | doi:10.1038/439249a
Will Germany choose a fair élite?
Top of pageAbstractContest to select top universities accused of political bias.
Germany's universities are taking part in a contest that is intended to boost their global standing. But claims that political bias will affect the selection process have sparked debate over whether the top institutions will — or even should — win.
Despite being one of the world's largest economies, Germany's research universities punch below their weight in world rankings. So, in 2004, the then centre-left government created a 1.9-billion (US$2.3-billion) scheme to name and reward a handful of élite universities.
Each chosen university will receive up to 30 million a year for five years to help them compete with the likes of Harvard, Cambridge and Tokyo. Winners of the first round will be announced on 20 January.
But last week brought allegations that the contest will not be based purely on academic merit. Daniel Guhr, founder of the Illuminate Consulting Group, based in San Diego, California, had been helping Berlin's Humboldt University to pep up its application. In an interview with Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, he claimed that the competition is bound to be biased by political and regional considerations, and he released details of a study in which he predicts the universities most likely to win.
For example, Guhr argues that universities with historically strong reputations will have an advantage regardless of their current research status. And that institutes such as the Free University of Berlin and the University of Würzburg in Bavaria — both with strong research programmes — do not have a fair chance because they are geographically close to the favourites, including Humboldt and the Technical University of Munich. "If the decision were solely about scientific excellence, a disproportionate share of the winners would be in southern Germany," he told Nature. "Clearly, this would be hard to accept in Germany's federal system."
Guhr adds that he sees such factors as "legitimate and reasonable" — without a political component to the decision, even the strongest universities in the east, for example, the University of Dresden, would have little chance. But he says that biases should be properly acknowledged because of the consequences for the losers. "Funding and attention will focus on the new élite."
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The consultant has been almost unanimously criticized for his outburst. Humboldt cut ties with him, and research managers throughout Germany have rejected the idea. "The claims are totally unfounded," insists Eva-Maria Streier, spokeswoman for Germany's main research agency, the DFG, which is running the competition. "Political interests will not play a role in the outcome."
Guhr says he is surprised by the response. "I'm just saying what everyone already knows," he says. Many will be keeping an eye on his predictions when the final results are announced.