Origin

Established 1978 as an interdisciplinary research unit of the University of Kassel the Center for Research on Higher Education and Work (Wissenschaftliches Zentrum für Berufs- und Hochschulforschung, short: WZ I) was approved initially for a foundation phase. Since 1982, it is a permanent unit of the University.
In March 2006, the Centre changed its name to "International Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel" (short: INCHER-Kassel). The new name was chosen in order to stress more the international aspects of the Centre's activities and at the same time to find an acronym which is more comprehensible in an international context (INCHER instead of WZ I).

Academic members and staff

Members of the INCHER-Kassel are

• two professors whose research work is fully assigned to the Centre and a varying number of professors allocating part of their research activities to this framework,
• research associates, employed with the help of 7 1/2 full-time positions provided by the University or of research grants, or financed through various kinds of contracts,
• secretarial or library staff, employed with the help of 4 full-time positions provided by the University or of research grants, and
• students financially supported via employment as student assistants or via short-term contracts.
• The Center has established its documentation, publication and computer services on a regular basis.  The documentation centre takes care for more than 30,000 volumes. The publication unit is in charge of the editing and publishing processes of the key publications, supports other publications where needed, and plays a major role in public relation activities. The computer unit takes care of the equipment and required training.

Research Priorities

With its research the Center aims to contribute both to the theoretical and methodological advancement of research and a to provision of practice-relevant systematic knowledge on higher education. The changing public debates on major problems in higher education, the readiness of public agencies and foundations to support funds and occasional requests for analyses on the part of the University of Kassel demand the Centre to modify its research priorities to a certain extent according to the changing "Zeitgeist", but the provision of substantial resources by the University allows the Centre not to be merely driven by coincidences of funding and thematic fashions.

The profile of the Centre in Kassel might be described as

• combining a broad range of themes (e.g. curricular, socialization, labour market, work issues) and disciplines in addressing the relationships between higher education and the world of work,
• embarking on a broad range of issues of higher education beyond their specific area of specialization,
• addressing international issues, undertaking comparative research and being closely embedded in the international academic community of higher education experts,
• being more active than other institutions in stimulating communication among higher education researchers in Germany, notably through conferences and publications on the state of research.

Research Activities, Cooperation and Dissemination

The Centre was awarded substantial grants over the years for projects from the European Commission, the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology and the Volkswagen Foundation. Among the various additional sponsors were ministries of education of all the German Länder and some Länder ministries in charge of economic, social and interior affairs, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, various German and foreign foundations, the Federal Employment Agency, some German development aid agencies, intergovernmental agencies as well cooperating umbrella agencies in higher education both in Germany and other countries.

Various projects were undertaken in direct cooperation with other agencies, e.g. the German Academic Exchange Service, the Rectors' Conference, the CRE - European Association of Universities, with research institutes in other countries, e.g. the European Institute of Education and Social Policy and the Japan Institute of Labour, and through the establishment of teams of cooperating researchers both in Germany and across various countries.

Study Programme

• Although the Centre was founded as a research unit and originally teaching did not belong to the Centre's responsibilities, it offers, since October 2005, together with the Department of Social Sciences of the University an international Master Programme "Higher Education".
  Foreign and German students who already have attained a BA degree (or equivalent) in Social Sciences, Education, Law or Economics are invited to take part in the Programme which aims to prepare for professional careers in the field of higher education (e.g. institutional research, career services, international relations, accreditation, evaluation, transfer services, departmental development or decision-making at the central level) as well as for careers in higher education research. The Programme starts annually in October with the first one-week introductory module.
  Altogether 13 one week modules are offered in the course of one year.