The German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat, WR) is an advisory body to the German Federal Government and the federal state governments. It makes recommendations on the development of science, research, and the universities, as well as on the competitiveness of German science. These recommendations involve both quantitative and financial considerations, as well as their implementation. Funding is provided by the federal and state governments.[1]
In the recent past, the German Council of Science and Humanities expressed its views in its statements, recommendations, and position papers on various topics, including university construction (2022),[2][3] the transformation of scientific publishing to
Open Access (2022),[4][5] and
science communication (2021).[6][7] In 2020, it published the position paper "Impulses from the
COVID-19 Crisis for the Further Development of the Science System in Germany,"[8] which described ten challenges for research to be crisis-proof.[9] In 2019, it called for more funds for
peace and conflict studies.[10][11] In the same year (2019), it issued a statement on the further development of university medicine in
North Rhine-Westphalia.[12] In 2016, the Council produced a position paper on knowledge and technology transfer.[13] In 2015, in a position paper titled "Major Societal Challenges" internationally referred to as societal challenges or grand challenges,[14] it called for the "integration and flexible recombination of knowledge on ecological, technological, social, cultural, and economic aspects of a transformation process."[15]
Presidents
Presidents (Vorsitzender) of the organization:[16]
^Empfehlungen zur Transformation des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens zu Open Access auf der wissenschaftsrat.de (PDF; 1 MB), Januar 2022, abgerufen am 10. Februar 2022.
^Stellungnahme zur Weiterentwicklung der Universitätsmedizin Nordrhein-Westfalen auf der wissenschaftsrat.de (PDF; 5 MB), abgerufen am 10. Februar 2022.