March 10, 1992
The German Federal Constitutional Court confirmed the constitutionality of the regulations in Article 38 of the Unification Treaty (evaluation of the AdW by the Science and Humanities Council of the FRG, dissolution of the institutes by December 31, 1991).
June 30, 1992
The Coordination and Phase-out Office for the Institutes and Facilities of the Former Academy of Sciences of the GDR concluded its dissolution of the institutes. The Academy of Sciences of the GDR ceased to exist.
[ . . . ]
V. Impact on the Academic Community in Germany
[ . . . ]
The following related theses can be proposed today:
– Due to the restructuring of the academic community in Eastern Germany, many new, modern, and efficient institutes have emerged, some of which even set a standard for good Western German institutes.
– The development of the instrument of joint funding by the federal government and the federal states has been greatly influenced by the thirty-three new institutes in the East.
– Strong impetuses for the internal process that these institutes underwent came from the East itself. This made it possible for the Leibniz Institutes to become one of the four pillars of the system of research and development in Germany.
The significance of the Leibniz Institutes as regards scientific policy prompted the Federal-State Joint Commission for Educational Planning and the Promotion of Research Activities [Bund-Länder-Kommission or BLK] to make the following statements at its September 4, 2001, session:
– Important instrument for academic research policy in Germany
– Nationwide significance, R&D policy interests of the country as a whole
– Offers the federal government and the federal states the option of a flexible response
– Enables important research across federal state borders
– Facility results are rated “good” to “very good,” sometimes top results internationally.
The other research organizations were greatly affected by the unification process as well. To name just one small example, the largest institute of the Fraunhofer Society today is in Dresden, Saxony, and the Max Planck Society operates three major institutes in Dresden alone.
VI. Conclusion
Even for those involved in the process, the past fifteen years have brought some surprising results and successes that would not have been considered possible during the individual steps. Time passed very quickly.
Today, all those involved can look back proudly, or at least contentedly, on their achievements, which would not have been possible without their active and sometimes courageous participation. But perhaps they had no choice but to look ahead and shape their future with their own hands.
Good management in the institutes was indispensable, as was the support of the financial backers. As always, the main thing was quality: good research costs money, but no one can afford to do bad research.
Source: Peter Joehnk, “Die Auflösung der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR und ihre Überführung in neue Strukturen – ein Beispiel für den Konversionsprozess in Ostdeutschland in Folge der Wiedervereinigung” [“The Dissolution of the GDR Academy of Sciences and its Subsumption into New Structures – An Example of the Transformation Process in East Germany in the Wake of Unification”], www.internationale-kooperation.de/doc/report_joehnk_964.pdf, 2005.
Translation: Allison Brown
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