Organisational profile

Range of services

Publications

Organisational profile

The Higher Education Information System (HIS) supports German institutions of higher education (universities and universities of applied sciences) and their administrations as well as higher education policy-makers in their efforts to fulfil their tasks effectively. The focus of our work is on activities:

• as a software house for higher education administration
• within the area of higher education research through empirical studies and other forms of expertise
• in the area of higher education development with the central topics of higher education organisation, construction and building

HIS was founded in 1969 by the Volkswagen Foundation as a non-profit organisation and was taken over in 1975 with the Federal and state governments as shareholders. The owners and funders of HIS have remained the Federal State and the Länder, the former holding one third and the latter two thirds of the organisation's capital stock.

HIS is conceived of as an element of the German higher education system. This concept secures a long-term not-for-profit performance profile, which takes its lead from the needs of the higher education sector.

HIS has been offering IT-support to higher education administrations for over thirty years. This know-how regarding decision-making, work and organisational structures in German higher education is unique to HIS. On the basis of this, HIS is able to complement its high-performance higher education management software with support and consultancy concerning the optimisation of administration processes and organisational structures. This know-how is furthermore used by HIS to continually update and develop its own software, which is used by over 220 institutions of higher education in Germany.

As higher education research institute with a large volume of relevant data - e.g. on the educational behaviour of potential students, students and graduates - coupled with high-level analytical competencies, HIS can provide planning agencies at both state-level and the level of individual higher education institutions with sound and flexible planning and steering information.

In 1986, HIS took over the tasks of the disbanded central archive for higher education construction. Since then, works on construction and resource planning for higher education have become part of HIS' core performance profile.

Further information

Dr. Bernhard Hartung