German university leaders are overwhelmingly male, all German, almost entirely white, and many have limited experience outside their own institutions, according to a report that has sparked debate about university presidents’ homogeneity. There are fears that their lack of outside experience could be harming German universities in the new globalised world.

Forty percent of Germany’s 81 university leaders have worked only at their own institutions since becoming professors, according to a report University Rectors in Germany, of the Centre for Higher Education thinktank based in Gutersloh. Peter-Andre Alt, president of the German Rectors’ Conference, told Times Higher Education that this is a “really alarming figure”. “This is a disadvantage as we need more people who have experience at different institutions,” he says.

Isabel Roessler, a senior project manager at the centre who helped compile the report, warns that the problem goes deeper. “Some of them even wrote their Ph D at the same university, so they have never seen another university from the inside,” she says. “When you want to manage such a huge institution, you should have a more holistic overview of institutions.” But the analysis did also find that the majority of leaders — women in particular — had spent some of their studies or careers abroad.

The report reveals that 95 percent of university leaders were born in Germany, while the remainder were Germans born in neighbouring European countries. This uniformity boils down to the “language issue”, Professor Alt says: leaders need excellent German to “read between the lines” of the specialised administrative language used in the country’s universities. “If you are not fluent in German, you fail,” he says.

Even then, there are multiple barriers to non-Germans, warns Roessler. “You need a deep insight into the German university system” and state-level politics, as well as a “very good academic reputation in Germany. I’m pretty sure many academics (in Germany) have no idea about researchers and leaders abroad.” Men make up 77 percent of the university leadership, while just one university head — Joybrato Mukherjee, president of Giessen University — is non-white, according to Dr. Roessler.

By comparison, in the UK, almost a quarter of institutions are headed by a woman; 25 out of 150 universities are headed by non-UK nationals; and five leaders are non-white, according to figures from Advance HE. The report has triggered media criticism of university leaders; the magazine Spiegel reports that it showed they were typically “59, white and male”.

But there are signs of change. In 2005, when data was last collected, there were only six female leaders. Now there are 19; five women became presidents in just the past year, says Roessler. “There has been a change,” she says, as female academics have gained in confidence from seeing other women win top jobs.

(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)