Outsourcing in der Lehre – Eine Möglichkeit für die Zukunft?

Innovative solutions are called for to deal with the increasingly heavy burdens placed on teaching staff in German universities by even higher numbers of student enrolments. Alongside differentiating between research and teaching tenures, as recommended by the German Council of Science and Humanities ( WISSENSCHAFTSRAT), there is also a series of other options for meeting the challenges. One of these which has proven its value is partial outsourcing of the teaching load to external academic staff provided by a specialised service provider. Such a professionalised approach to teaching leads to a high degree of unity between research and teaching activities, whilst the wide scope for research activities allows to stop the drift of university staff engaged in research into pure institutes of research, meaning that they continue to contribute their expertise to ensure high standards in university teaching.