How many elite universities could there be in Germany?
PETER GRUSS: Three or four at most. ZEIT: But the Max Planck Institutes, which are half financed by the federal government, aren’t exactly rolling in money either. PETER GRUSS: Our personnel and energy costs alone eat up the currently agreed 3 percent budget increase. So at the moment we don’t even have the chance to found new institutes. We need more money on top of those 3 percent in order to successfully continue developing. Specifically: for a new institute we need two percent budget growth. And Max Planck isn’t even particularly expensive. We are still 800 million euros cheaper than Stanford University – and have at least as high a scientific output. ZEIT: If you are against merging in the long term – in what direction should the German academic system develop? PETER GRUSS: We are currently seeing attempts in many places to create new structures through local collaborations – as shown by, for example, the Max Planck Graduate Centre in Mainz. Or look at Karlsruhe, Munich, Gttingen
