Call for Papers for the Special Issue (German/English):
Private higher education in Germany: dynamics - potentials - tensions
Since the early 2000s, a profound transformation of the German higher education and science system can be observed: Private universities have developed - initially largely unnoticed by higher education research - from a marginal phenomenon to an integral part of the German higher education landscape.
Not only the quantitative growth is remarkable, but also the fact that private higher education has the potential to have a structural impact due to their in many respects different characteristics. As more and more research projects have been dealing with the topic in recent years, the planned special issue of the Contributions to Higher Education Research (Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung) aims to close this gap and to take a closer look at private universities in Germany from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives.
We welcome manuscripts of different orientation and length in German or English: research articles (quantitative or qualitative studies), research notes and insights into practice. Details on the formats can be found in the “guidelines for authors".
If you are interested, please submit an abstract (max. 600 words) by September 14, 2025 in German or English: beitraege (at) ihf.bayern.de, including your intended article format.
The editors of this special issue are Antje Buche (Professor of Social Sciences with a focus on Sociology at the European Distance Learning University Hamburg) and Sandra Buchholz (Professor of Quantitative Life Course Sociology at Leibniz University Hannover and Head of the Department “Educational Trajectories and Employment” at the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies; member of the authors' group National Education Report Leibniz University Hannover/ German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies). Together they are researching students at non-state universities in the BMFTR joint project “TypeS”.
If you have any queries, please contact the editors at: beitraege (at) ihf.bayern.de
Call for Papers: Private higher education in Germany: dynamics - potentials - tensions
Schedule:
Submission of abstracts: September 14, 2025
Feedback: October 2, 2025
Submission of full manuscripts: December 15, 2025
Review results: End/mind march 2026
Submission of final manuscripts: End of May 2026
Release (Online and print): Q1/2027