Elections in Germany: The main political parties' proposals for higher education and R&I

Reducing bureaucracy, strengthening military research, increasing tax credits for businesses and modernising campuses: these are some of the targeted higher education and research measures that the main German political parties are putting forward in their respective programmes for the early general elections on 23/02/2025, according to a survey carried out by News Tank.

Put at the service of the country's economy, higher education and research must be elevated to the rank of national "priority", for the Social Democrats of the SPD - the party of the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is running for a second term - and for the conservatives of the CDU-CSU, leading in the polls. "Germany must be one of the world's leading centres for research, study and innovation", argue the FDP's liberals.

With that in mind, the SPD, FDP and Greens are all reaffirming the creation of the German Agency for Technology Transfer and Innovation (Dati), which has already been launched but is facing numerous delays. However, the agency is not mentioned in the CDU-CSU programme, which puts forward the idea…