The state of Hesse features a dense landscape of universities and research institutes that contribute significantly to the value creation and innovative capability of the federal state. Through the Hessian Higher Education Pact, the state government has agreed on a 4% increase in the basic funding of higher education institutions. Supplemented by specific funding programmes, this will lay the foundations for creating better equality of opportunity, good employment conditions and greater ecological sustainability.
The universities are pursuing a consistent profiling strategy on the basis of the strategy concepts in order to reinforce their potential. A separate profiling budget supports the implementation of the strategy concepts. Hesse already has national and international visibility in research and is competitive in many fields, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cancer research, energy systems and social conflict research.
New initiatives are also being specifically funded through Hesse’s own research funding programme, the State Initiative for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence (LOEWE). The LOEWE programme has five funding lines: Research Centres, Research Clusters, SME Projects, Top and Start Professorships, and Exploration Projects. In addition, there is a new call for proposals for the pilot project LOEWE Transfer Professorships.
Another hallmark of Hesse’s science policy is the targeted promotion of research at universities of applied sciences (UASs), for example by conferring on them the independent right to award doctorates in particularly research-intensive subject areas or by implementing a programme to increase the number of non-professorial academic staff members.
In the area of innovation, transfer and start-up funding, the state of Hesse has created a process chain of interlinked funding programmes for innovations, new businesses and knowledge-based start-ups. This covers a whole raft of initiatives, including research funding as part of LOEWE, early-stage funding for university start-up projects as part of the Hessen Ideas start-up competition, specific support programmes for digital innovations as part of Distr@l, the promotion of artificial intelligence, and the expansion of the tech and start-up ecosystem in Hesse as part of the Start-up Initiative Hessen.
Major impetus is also being given to digitalisation – for example through the Hessian Digital Pact for Higher Education. The Hessian Centre for Artificial Intelligence hessian.AI bundles together Hesse’s AI expertise and is one of four national AI service centres. More than 50 million euros has been earmarked for the expansion of AI. The newly founded AI Quality & Testing Hub GmbH, in which Hesse is a 50 per cent stakeholder, also contributes to the development of AI quality by offering expertise and knowledge transfer in that area. Of no less importance is the contribution to the responsible implementation of digitalisation and AI made by the Centre for Responsible Digitality (ZEVEDI) and the Digital Ethics Council.
For the period of 2020 to 2025, a funding volume of around 65 million euros has been allocated for boosting the digital transformation in the new programme Distr@l ‘Digitalisierung stärken, Transfer leben’ (strengthening digitalisation, embracing transfer). Distr@l aims to promote the research and development of application-oriented digital innovation projects. These projects will be carried out by SMEs, start-ups and universities.