No obligation to transparency: Campus of the University of Hamburg (archive picture)
Photo: A3576 Maurizio Gambarini / dpa
Without donors, the University of Hamburg's budget would be significantly smaller: in the first half of 2020 alone, according to the “Ask the State” portal, the university should have received more than twelve million euros in grants from so-called third-party donors.
The transparency initiative had already wanted to find out for previous years from whom this money came - the university, on the other hand, only wanted to name the donors if they had expressly consented to publication.
The names of the donors may also be kept secret in future.
The Hamburg Higher Administrative Court (OVG) decided on Wednesday in the second instance.
The activists' claim for information for 2013 and 2014 was dismissed (file number Bf 183/13).
In doing so, the judges changed a previous decision by the Hamburg Administrative Court, which had still obliged the university to provide information.
In principle, there is a far-reaching transparency law in Hamburg, with which citizens can request information from public institutions.
The exception provision contained therein, according to which this information obligation does not apply to basic research and application-related research, is "not restricted to the core area of academic freedom," explained the OVG.
This is why this clause also applies to “directly science-related matters and, in this respect, also to information about third-party funding for research purposes”.
For the initiative, the decision is an unexpected defeat.
"The verdict surprises us very much," said Arne Semsrott from "Ask the State" to SPIEGEL: "It sends a fatal signal, because science thrives on transparency." In order to enable control and a democratic discourse on research, it must be publicly known be who finances research and teaching.
Uni-President Dieter Lenzen, however, stated that the judgment of the OVG had averted a specific danger for university funding.
Because if publication were required, according to Lenzen, "the willingness of many benefactors and friends of the University of Hamburg as well as potential partners such as foundations and other bodies to support science would have collapsed."
more on the subject
US research funding: Millions from the Pentagon for German universities By Armin Himmelrath and Holger Dambeck
Research funding: University professors raise an average of 266,000 euros
Third-party funding: Facebook sponsors TU Munich with 6.5 million euros by Kristin Haug
The activists contacted the University of Hamburg for the first time in 2015 and asked for information about all income, sponsorship, donations, gifts and advertising allowances from previous years that had exceeded the value of 1000 euros.
After the university had refused this, in some cases with reference to confidentiality agreements, the Hamburg Administrative Court obliged the university to provide information in March 2018.
The presidium had taken action against this first judgment with the help of an external law firm and was now right.
The Higher Administrative Court did not allow an appeal against his decision on Wednesday.
Icon: The mirror
him