Dear Readers,

Next year, the University of Oldenburg will be 25 years old - a rather youthful age at which people are often assumed to be agile, willing to change and dynamic. These are qualities that are necessary in these times of great upheaval in order not to stand still and be penalised by life. But they alone are not enough to ensure survival. Above all, this also requires foresight that rises above the rapid reactions to seemingly daily changing requirements and enables decisions to be made that will still be valid in 25 years' time.

Such a decision was made on 3 July by Lower Saxony's Science Minister Oppermann and Bremen's Education Senator Kahrs when they signed a very specifically formulated joint declaration on the creation of a Northwest Science Region. The public took little notice of this event, which is nevertheless of the utmost importance for the region and will result in far-reaching changes for the universities of Oldenburg and Bremen.

What still seems irritating or even unreasonable to some today will be taken for granted in a few years' time: Professors teaching in Bremen and Oldenburg, students enrolled at both universities, detailed agreements in research and degree programme planning. Even examination regulations, otherwise sacred cows of university autonomy and the cultural sovereignty of the federal states, are to be harmonised. With so much border-crossing, the question naturally arises as to whether there will already be a joint management of the two universities in 25 years' time.

Whatever the case, the close merger is a wish of the universities themselves - born out of the realisation that in the short, medium and long term there is a lack of public funding for necessary expansion plans - even for those that have already been approved by politicians, such as the engineering sciences in Oldenburg. So the only way out is to pool resources to form a north-west science region in order to keep up with the competition. The prerequisite, however, is that the two universities pull together and throw their weight into the balance. If this succeeds, they will be able to occupy a leading position with their almost 30,000 students in concert with the major universities in Germany.

Yours

Gerhard Harms