EDUCATIONAL RIVALRIES 411
The East Germany universities were each supposed to develop a spe-
cifi c research profi le. Scholarship was supposed to be subject to the pri-
macy of the economy and organized in such a way that the universities
could address “key national economic issues” and catch up with West
Germany in technology development. There was also a push to integrate
students more heavily in the research process. One important aspect of
the SED’s modernization project for the universities was the introduc-
tion of third-party fi nancing for research at the beginning of the 1960s
in the form of commercial contracts with socialist industry partners.^79
In addition to the economic focus and stronger research profi les, this
contract fi nancing of research was supposed to correlate the potential
for innovation at the university with the specifi c needs of the socialist in-
dustry. A prime example of such a cooperative eff ort was the partnership
between Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and the Zeiss factories.^80 At
the same time, these joint programs were supposed to make use of avail-
able state budget funds for steered industrial research projects within the
framework of the “major socialist research program.”^81 This clear focus
on production in the organization of scientifi c research not only applied
to the universities, but also to nonuniversity research at the Germany
Academy of Sciences (DAW) and industry institutes.^82 Since the industrial
combinates were more interested in short-term joint projects for specifi c
applications, this led to a systematic neglect of fundamental research at
the universities for a long time. Meanwhile, the DAW was able to develop
itself into the main site for fundamental research, especially in physics
and chemistry. Early in the 1970s, it seemed that the industrial focus
within research and the contract projects were becoming victims of their
complexity. By 1972, the SED once again made fundamental research at
the GDR’s universities a major political priority, and signifi cant funding
was provided to them from the national budget. Despite this ambitious
attempt to modernize socialist science and research by coupling it with
the increasing scientifi cation of the industrial sector, the problems and
defi cits in the GDR’s academic system mounted in the 1980s. Indeed, no
further noteworthy changes were made before the collapse of the SED
regime.
In West Germany, the debate about the overhaul of the university sys-
tem was hardly less heated than the discussions over the reform of the
upper secondary school level, although it proved to have much less of
an eff ect over the long run. The passing of a new legislative framework,
the Hochschulrahmengesetz, in 1976 seemed to open a new chapter in
the troublesome history of the reform of university studies. Ever since
the Wissenschaftsrat (Council of Science and Humanities), which was the
most important advisory body for West German university policy, had