The non-profit CHE CHE Centre for Higher Education has seen itself since its foundation as an independent and implementation orientated think tank with an international outlook. The main focus is on the German and European higher education.

We are convinced that the scientific system should be versatile to be able to offer, amid changing conditions, optimal and differentiated development opportunities to all those who want to participate in it.

We therefore committed to to a scientific system with…
 

• autonomous higher education institutions 
• stakeholders which are able to act
• diverse higher education profiles 
• appropriate structures and processes
• transparent perfomances
• higher education autonomy with social responcibility.

In these fields, we provide thought-provoking ideas, stimulate innovative pilot initiatives and consider reform results. Our approaches and considerations take international trends and experiences into account and are solidified and implemented in a partnership-based dialogue with experts and decision-makers from science, administration and politics (especially higher education and research institutes, ministries, the EU, foundations and other NGOs). Convincing good practice solutions are actively communicated and made publicly available. In this way, we satisfy the not-for-profit-making mission to which we are committed.

We operate at two levels, namely the scientific system level and the level of the individual institutions in it and we advocate suitable framework conditions that enable higher education and research institutions to act autonomously. We pursue and support developments, changes in the science system as well as socio-political and economic targets in a constructive and critical way. We point out positive results and negative developments based on solid evaluations. We draw up studies and opinions on relevant higher education research issues, in doing so we focus on manageable recommendations and the practical implementation of research results.

With our differentiated and internationally recognised ranking and other offers of information, we create transparency in regards to the activities and developments on the level of the individual higher education institutes as well as of the scientific system. The ranking is principally a service offer with information for prospective students.

We use target-group-specific publications and further training programmes ans events to make the results of our work available to the interested public. We also support decision-makers by providing them the skills and competencies they need to fulfill their tasks.