Promotionskolleg NRW receives right to confer doctoral degrees

In his speech beforehand, Sternberg had emphasised the great importance of the independent doctoral right for the doctoral college, whose sponsors are the 21 HAW in the state, and had spoken several times of the milestone. Minister Ina Brandes was also full of praise and underlined the importance of higher education policy for science and industry: "This is a great opportunity for North Rhine-Westphalia," she said. It didn't matter that the sign, which was produced especially for the occasion, was too big for the presentation on stage and that the handshake had to suffice, as the Minister told the audience.

Enthusiasm at H-BRS

There is great joy at Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg about this milestone. "The granting of the right to confer doctoral degrees is a very important step for the Universities of Applied Sciences in North Rhine-Westphalia, and one that is consistent in terms of science politics. The Science Council recognised and highlighted the excellent quality of the research environment for doctoral students at the doctoral college and the HAW in its report. The right to award doctorates to the HAW will give applied research in NRW a significant boost and further strengthens NRW as a science state overall," says University President Hartmut Ihne.

Herpers: We are overjoyed

 "Finally. We are overjoyed," says Prof. Dr. Rainer Herpers, founding director of the Graduate Institute at the H-BRS and also founding director at the Doctoral College NRW. "We have been working towards this for twelve years."