Falling student numbers, rising energy costs, numerous large construction sites on campus, and completely new prospects for Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg as a member of the EU GREEN university network: The University of Magdeburg is also starting into the 2023/24 winter semester as a dynamic and constantly changing university. But where are we right now and where do we want and need to go? And what can a university library do without books? And what can annoy a rector quite a bit? These are some of the questions we put to our rector, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan, at the beginning of the semester. Listen to what he had to say.

Our guest today:

Mechanical engineer Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan has been at the helm of Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg since 2012. Appointed to the Chair of Technical Dynamics in 2004, he was, among other things, Vice President for Studies and Teaching and Vice Dean of the Mechanical Engineering faculty. He worked for many years as President of the State Rectors’ Conference in Saxony-Anhalt and received the Gruson badge of honor from the Association of German Engineers (VDI) in recognition of his commitment to engineering and science. He is currently Chairman of the Board of uni-assist e.V., the working and service center for the preliminary examination of international student applications, which is supported by around 170 universities in Germany.

*the audio file is only available in German

The podcast to read

Intro-Stimme: Tuning into the university. The podcast about the world of work at OVGU.

Katharina Vorwerk: Do you have a favorite place at the university?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: The library has been my favorite place for 15 years, even now while construction work is underway. That being said, my view has changed, of course, because at the moment I’m more interested in how things are progressing and not necessarily in borrowing books which are decreasing in number anyway.

Katharina Vorwerk: What would you say really annoyed you in the last few days?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Oh, I don’t really get very annoyed. What I do notice, however, is that I am increasingly bother by micromanagement – either internally or by ministries or other administrations. Especially since we know that this can’t continue because we don’t have the people needed to control it permanently. And when I am annoyed that this is being brought to us from the outside, I sometimes ask myself: Do we have to pass it on internally in the same way?

Yesterday in the Senate, we had some topics that I thought did not necessarily need to be discussed there.

Katharina Vorwerk: But what were you really happy about?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: We’ve had some great events in the last few days, such as the inauguration of the student workshop in Mechanical Engineering. I think that’s great, and not just because I’m a mechanical engineer myself. But I believe it is vital to create free spaces where students can be creative 24 hours a day, where they can try something out and have something real in their hands and not just a simulation model. That’s why there are 3D printers, and you can also drill and saw. I think that’s pretty good.

Katharina Vorwerk: When your enthusiasm wanes, how do you motivate yourself?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: That’s something I’m good at. That’s something you also need for the job. Motivation doesn’t come from the fact that your publication has been accepted or other things that a scientist otherwise experiences, but from the fact that something is working out for the institution. And this perspective is what gets me through the days, weeks, and months. I don’t have any problems when it comes to motivation.

Katharina Vorwerk: With these honest answers, I would like to welcome you to a new podcast episode. And you all know the person briefly introduced in this short profile, because it is, of course, our rector, whom I would like to warmly welcome here.

Good morning, Professor Strackeljan.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Good morning, Ms. Vorwerk.

Katharina Vorwerk: My name is Katharina Vorwerk. I am the university’s press spokesperson and over the next 30 minutes I would like to talk about falling student numbers, rising energy costs, major projects, even greater challenges, and changes to mark the start of term.

Professor Strackeljan, we are sitting here in your office. The top of your desk is hidden under stacks of files.

But looking past that, I can see an oil painting behind your desk chair. A friendly Otto von Guericke looking over your shoulder.

Do you sometimes feel our spiritus rector literally breathing down your neck?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Yes, but in a more positive sense. After all, we have it enshrined in our mission statement and are convinced that Guericke continues to inspire us today with his ideas. And above all, he was also an excellent scientific communicator. Not only did he discover things, but he was also able to bring them to society. And he was also politically active. And these are all tasks that are ultimately the responsibility of a university or college management. I’m not saying that I turn around and talk to him, but I can feel it somehow. And when I come into the office and all the other visitors see the painting, that’s obviously appealing. This office is also usually where appointments are made. It’s usually a situation where I get chatting to my new colleagues, sometimes their families come along too, and at the end, many of them want a photo in front of the Guericke.

Katharina Vorwerk: But it’s nice to think of you coming in here in the morning and talking to him, at least in your mind’s eye. When I look out of your office window today, as I have for the last few days, we see a full campus. Sure, the winter semester started again a few days ago. And even though the enrolment period is still running, are you satisfied with the enrolment figures?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Not really. In the end, things turned out better than we had initially expected. The total figure, if you compare it now with previous years, is quite good. But we also have to realize that we were much better positioned in the past. We had over 14,000 students. But I don’t want to base this solely on numbers. There are internal shifts that are relevant to the university and its profile, and we have to keep reminding ourselves of the tradition we come from, which is still very much based on the pillar of a technical university. We would like to have 50 percent of students, including first-semester students and later as graduates, in the STEM fields. That’s where our work it cut out. It is quite difficult at the moment.

But there are some positives: The teaching degree program with German as a first subject got off to an excellent start. All in all, the German programs outside the STEM subjects are good and there are a few changes for international students.

Katharina Vorwerk: When you say there are shifts, what does that mean for the University of Magdeburg down the line? Do we have to work harder to get people? Do we have to say that there will be shifts that we will have to come to terms with? Do you have a certain scenario in mind?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: First of all, we have a clear role allocation here in the federal state. As a result of the major structural reforms that began in 2003, we have given up a lot. But Halle has also lost the engineering sciences. And we are now filling out this profile. And if this profile makes it difficult for us – not just due to changes in society as a whole but also due to a changed orientation among young people – to ultimately serve those people who are supposed to stay here in the region, for whom industry is waiting, then there is definitely a certain amount of pressure, so that perhaps politicians will also take a closer look. That being said, the system with 50,000 students in Saxony-Anhalt has also been significantly larger than planned in recent years. The budgets are designed to accommodate around 35,000 students. There is indeed still a bit of a buffer. Also for us, of course. Lectures that have very low student numbers in a bachelor’s degree in engineering disciplines are therefore a problem and we have to tackle this. But there are also a whole host of ideas.

Katharina Vorwerk: The internationals are still a large group here, even if there are now certain restrictions due to various framework conditions, and the Welcome Center is being built 100 meters as the crow flies from the Rectorate. I would also say it is an eye-catcher at the interface between the campus and the city.

Who will move in, when, and what exactly will they do?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Given the current situation in the construction industry and the associated difficulties, it is, of course, not easy to predict when this will happen. However, we do expect it to happen by the end of the first quarter of 2024. On the one hand, this building stands for a different way of working. That’s our idea. Of course, there are also single offices, which are also needed. But there are also larger areas where people can meet and talk to each other. Firstly, all those who work there, but also those who come to use the services. Essentially, as the name Welcome Center implies, we want to bundle services for our internationals. And that means that large areas will be transferred from K3 to this building, i.e., everything related to student registration. And we can ask ourselves whether it makes sense to make a separation at all considering the high number of internationals, or should we say, okay, these are the processes for German students, these are the processes for international students. And, of course, the International Office, which looks after them. These are areas that will definitely be included in the Welcome Center.

Katharina Vorwerk: The entire campus seems to be a construction site at the moment. As part of the energy concept, outdated infrastructure is being dug up and replaced with new infrastructure. Photovoltaic systems are being installed on the roofs and so on. The campus will probably look completely different in a couple of years. Could you give us a rough idea here?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: You already mentioned the things that are simply born out of necessity. Everything that is happening here on campus now in terms of energy is ultimately the result of the fact that pipes were laid here in the 1960s, back when the university was founded. We have an internal district heating grid on campus. This is to remain in place, but it needs to be upgraded. The insulation is simply gone. There is a system of tunnels under the entire campus, you can also go in there, and we were able to see it at various points when it was open. And there are always connection requirements, including to the Senate building. Many of us have been following this, and, of course, some of us have also been following the associated construction noise, because it’s not as if there are no restrictions at all. Computers simply have to be disconnected when new access points are being fitted. In the end, however, we will be able to feed into our own grid at a central feed-in point, and we hope that we will then also be able to obtain district heating from a local supplier here. Then we will be largely green, and this will apply to electricity from 2024 anyway. We will be sourcing most of our electricity from hydropower generated in northern Europe. Photovoltaics is also an important point. Over the next few years, we will install PV on almost all roofs so that we will be able to cover the university’s basic needs whenever the sun shines. But we also need substantial energy to cool our computers, especially in summer. That fits well together. We won’t be completely self-sufficient yet, that won’t be possible, but it makes sense to invest in this area.

So your question was, will the campus look different? Yes, it will.

There will be two or three more buildings, but in the end one thing is clear: By 2030, when these buildings are perhaps completed, the net sealed area on the campus will remain unchanged. This means that at certain points we simply have to say, there used to be a car park here that no longer exists.

Katharina Vorwerk: You already mentioned it, both with regard to the future use of the Welcome Center but also with a view to the relatively rigorous and consistent redesign of the university library, a certain amount of criticism has been expressed here and there, sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly. A university library without books or coworking spaces are not everyone’s cup of tea and may take some getting used to.

But are there no alternatives to the changes on campus?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Oh, no alternative, that’s hard to say. I’ve just taken a look back at 2016/17. This is also important for a university with certain inertias that characterize it. These inertias protect us to a certain extent. So, we should not and will not react immediately to every external criticism. We also need be able to conduct research completely detached from major social issues on things that perhaps nobody has on their radar at the moment. And it’s not a bad thing if the university is also a bit of a tanker. A university doesn’t always have to be an agile speedboat.

However, the changes are now coming so rapidly and we cannot escape them, so we have to tackle certain things faster than in the past. And this should and must nevertheless be carried out in such a way that we take as many people with us as possible. And to those who might say, jeez, why does that have to happen now? Explain, explain and, above all, say what is necessary when things have to be done quickly. The changes will come and then perhaps the hard cut is the better way than a transformation that takes eight or ten years. The general line is clear – implementing changes under considerable time pressure is a challenge.

Katharina Vorwerk: We’ve been talking the entire time about changes that we also see and that are directly related to the campus or only to the campus and OVGU. But we have also been part of the EU GREEN university alliance for a few months now. Nine European universities are determined to set up a kind of joint campus. And in the meantime, these friendly declarations of intent have been followed by concrete action.

For example, I often hear about work package nine, which OVGU is working on. What can you tell me about that?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: This is the framework for EU GREEN. We want to make mobility much easier. Students should be able to move within these universities without major bureaucratic hurdles. We will introduce double agreements for a couple of study programs. That is what we promised Brussels, and that is what can be expected.

We also want to increase mobility among university members who are not currently directly involved in academia. And mobility can also mean preparing to travel and attending a language course first, for example. Now, of course, the central language within EU GREEN is English. But if you want to travel to Gävle in Sweden to take a look at a sustainable campus there, which is their work package, then it can’t hurt to learn a bit of Swedish in advance. And, of course, the Swedes can offer that too. Needless to say that these will be online courses, but they can still be combined with a classroom course on site.

These are the kind of ideas where EU GREEN becomes very concrete. And we understand that it can’t be just a brainchild, but that EU GREEN must permeate the entire university. Then it is much more than just a project, but a structure-forming element. And this is precisely where work package 9 comes in: We are already well on our way in terms of digital transformation. Our students have an app and can call up grades, for example. But we have to realize that some countries are already a bit further in this respect. And I have to get hold of teaching materials if I’m planning to attend a module in Parma in three weeks’ time. This needs to be possible without major barriers. This requires a platform, that is Green Work, and it is up to us to create it.

You can imagine it like this: In the morning, you no longer log in with your OVGU account, but with your EU Green account. This ensures that anyone logged in in this way has access to certain things at the other universities and thus also publishes certain things. This may sound very technical, but we now have to generate both – content in the work packages and also the technical platform that is then able to exchange this content. It’s exciting, but we have the SAP competence center here. They are in an excellent position to do this. They manage this on a national level in large projects and we simply want to transfer this to us. So, we have very good prerequisites and it is a very important project. I realized that the other day at the meeting in Parma. Everyone is waiting for Magdeburg to get Green Work up and running.

Katharina Vorwerk: When I listen to you, you sound relatively confident and relaxed in the face of this huge task. After all, we are talking about a remodeling project that involves the very structures. How much time do you think we have? Or how much time is planned to create these new structures?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: This is an area where I hope that we can simply be a bit of a pioneer. It is an area that we do not have complete control over. I mean, there are state regulations, national higher education laws, and the federal states have completely different structures, i.e., Germany as a federal system and other universities that are much more closely tied to national regulation. And bringing that together is no easy task. That’s why it’s difficult to say that everything will be finished by such and such a time.

Katharina Vorwerk: But the first steps?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: If it were up to me, the study programs would start in the coming winter semester. We have the programs. We know how to do it. But I suspect it will end up being 2025. And the question of when I can get on the tram in Wroclaw with a ticket on my smartphone that is also my MVB ticket in Magdeburg is, of course, exciting. In Lithuania, they would laugh about it and say: What other problem do you have here? That’s all possible.

I hope that we will also generate positive examples. In a relatively short time, i.e., within two years, and we can then say: Oh boy, that’s possible! We can then transfer what we have learnt to other approaches. And maybe we will also be able to say to the city: Why don’t you come along and have a look?

Katharina Vorwerk: We are therefore continuing to try to rigorously apply our motto of “Rethinking the world together.” Let’s see how that works out. And let’s hope, of course, that it all turns out the way we want it to. But what you are describing sounds like a lot of staying power and a willingness to get involved. Participation is the buzzword that keeps coming up. But how do we get everyone on board in this process? Are there any first ideas or visions?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: I was just talking about very basic things like language courses. But if behind certain doors, where only the occasional student is to be found – we have that too – it still becomes visible: Yes, this increasing internationalization, because students are coming to us from EU GREEN, from completely different networks or simply as individual foreign students. I can feel this internationalization and I think it also goes hand in hand with the developments that are currently taking place in Magdeburg. In the evenings in the bar, in the restaurant – and you notice this more and more – we hear people speaking in English. And our internationals are here too, we have 4,000 on campus alone. We must make languages possible. This should also be possible within the framework of working hours.

I had very positive feedback when our administration managers went to Angers, France, in April and they came back and said: That helped us a lot in many ways. Even if it was just the fact that there was an area of the university that had been occupied for many months because the students were protesting there. If this happens to us in the lecture hall, we don’t have to call the police straight away, we have to deal with it.

And otherwise to incentivize scientists and young researchers, and to simply say: Okay, we honor a joint activity that may then also lead to a European project, from which third-party funds are also acquired for the university. You have costs in the planning phase, travelling, you may have to hire a research assistant or an employee for three or four months. We will support something like this in the future and I believe that we will achieve participation very quickly. So, EU GREEN works in these work packages and not by the Board of Directors meeting every six months and thinking that important decisions have to be made there.

Katharina Vorwerk: You just mentioned the opportunities for scientists in the context of EU GREEN. But as far as research is concerned, we are also facing major challenges with our participation in the Federal Government’s excellence strategy. Three research initiatives are waiting for the go-ahead to submit this full application. The deadline is in February and the next assessments are due in just a few days.

How do you rate the chances of success for our research clusters, as I believe we call them? And what would failure, but also success, mean for OVGU?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: Well, this is competition at the very highest level. And we know how overbooked the tender is. And then there are the applications for which funds have already been earmarked. They have already passed this first stage. That does make sense, after all, you don’t want to turn off the power on these projects, where a lot of structure has been built up, after just a few years. This means that one third will probably receive the invitation to submit a full application and I think there will be some disappointment if it doesn’t work out, especially among those who have spent so much time over the last few months with incredible commitment and enthusiasm to get there. The preparation and now also the training and the accompanying preparation and installation of websites, etc. – a lot has been invested and at least one project should make it to the next level.

If this doesn’t happen, it’s not the end of the world. After all, the preparatory work can of, course, also be used for other things. But we have done it now, in the context of excellence, and not in order to turn it into a research group or a trans-regional special research area afterwards. But these are things that should happen in any case. And that is something that we will discuss in the future, i.e., when we have the results in February. We are optimistic, and not without reason, since the applications have great strengths.

Katharina Vorwerk: That all sounds like pretty crucial months for the university. We have to join forces and make a big start. But you also sometimes get the feeling in everyday university life that the tasks that have to be performed beyond research and teaching are growing. So, let me just mention a few key points: Transfer into society, career service, i.e., looking after graduates, diversity management, climate councils, sustainability, energy concept for rising energy costs. Can we manage to focus on everything like this? So, can we share our strengths there? Or do we perhaps have to prioritize somehow? Or how do we manage all of this at the same time?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: In any case, that is certainly a problem for such a medium-sized university. Medium-sized in all areas – students, that’s what it’s all about, but our staff are part of the budget in terms of study places. We have a certain number of staff for the number of study places allocated to us. And the tasks you just mentioned are, of course, comparable to a university with 25,000 students and a correspondingly higher staff number. That’s much easier there. So, we also need to prioritize personnel and ultimately resources, and we have just talked about participation. We have to take a lot of people with us who are involved and also say: Okay, this is an important task that may also be relevant for a certain period of time outside of the core tasks in teaching and research, and we have to do some groundwork in certain areas first. Then, hopefully, it will work sustainably on its own at some point.

And the topic of diversity should be seen as a task that benefits us a great deal. We are all convinced that diversity is indeed an enrichment in research and teaching, but in research it primarily offers the opportunity to attract the best minds. If you look at the diversity of the more than 100 nations here on campus alone, it’s clear that this is sometimes associated with stress, despite all the inclusion and integration of the many cultures that come together. And that is a challenge, but it’s not the other side of the coin, it goes hand in hand. However, I also see a great deal of willingness on the part of many to participate. And in some places, we simply have to say: Okay, that’s number two in our tasks.

But that’s exactly the point. The Rectorate cannot achieve this on its own. That wouldn’t work. It needs comrades-in-arms and when they say: We need a few more months now, then it will just take a few more months and this will automatically lead to a different prioritization than we would perhaps have made.

Katharina Vorwerk: Finally, let’s talk briefly about national politics. Our current university development plan, the HEP, is valid until 2025. Work on the next one is due to start soon or has already begun. Do you see a continuation or far-reaching strategic corrections?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: This goes hand in hand with the target agreements. These will expire at the end of 2024 and the minister wants the target agreements to be signed before the start of the new period this time. We often failed to do this in recent years. And we weren’t the ones responsible, it just took a little longer because various ministries were involved. The higher education system in Saxony-Anhalt costs a lot of money, so the Ministry of Finance is also involved. We have become more involved in teacher training again. So, the Ministry of Education is also on board.

Yes, and of course the ministries also have to coordinate with each other. And this must also be discussed in the cabinet. So, this is a process that takes time.

That’s why we’re starting now. Halle now has the task of finally submitting the university development plan. At MLU, the target agreement and university development planning go hand in hand. The new objectives are derived from the university development plan.

It won’t be quite like that for us, but we will now also prepare our goals and we are working on a specific point. The internationalization strategy, especially with a focus on teaching, is currently being revised. This was a strong process that the Vice Rector embarked on, which we very much welcome. And there is also strong support overall for this. I would like to get away from the nitty-gritty of certain agreements. The momentum especially in our subjects and the more than 30 percent decline in mechanical engineering in the last ten years are actually forcing Otto von Guericke University to take a broader view.

To say that falling student numbers correlate directly with a budget would cause us a problem, because we have the maintenance costs for the laboratories regardless of whether 50 students start their studies in mechanical engineering or 100. We have higher or rising personnel costs because one or more seminars are duplicated. But otherwise, we have costs that are not scalable. And this certainly needs to be emphasized to the federal-state politicians at this point. So, there are very specific points. Above all, we also want to fulfil certain tasks across universities. The operation of data centers is an issue at the individual facilities with all the new challenges that still exist – data security and cyber security.

But it’s also about completely new tasks. Research data must be made available. Researchers from all over the world should have access to this data. This is initially a nightmare for a data center manager. But we want to share these things. How can this be organized? How can we learn from each other? These are also all topics for the target agreement.

Katharina Vorwerk: So, last but not least: A new rector will be elected in less than a year. What challenges will he or she then face?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan: To further develop the university’s profile in times of increasingly tight budgets. To fight for the fact that in the areas we just mentioned, it has become much more difficult to ensure that new talent is recruited. Ultimately, this also helps to ensure that ‘Made in Germany’ actually remains a brand. We didn’t even mention Intel in the whole conversation, but the changes that are happening here at the site offer fantastic opportunities, so it’s more of a gift to be able to contribute over the next few years and not necessarily a burden. And we have initiated many things and are now facing a phase in which the European Structural Funds will once again provide resources that will form the structure of this university and ultimately help to further develop this federal state. This is a task and an obligation that you can only take on with pleasure. I too would definitely be up for it.

Katharina Vorwerk: This brings us to the end of the podcast. It took us a little longer than half an hour. But we would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Strackeljan for taking the time to talk to us. Of course, we wish everyone every success with all the projects we just mentioned. If you still have ideas or topics in mind that we should urgently discuss here, then simply write to us at

Until then, thank you for listening and take care.

Outro voice: Tuning into the university. The podcast about the world of work at OVGU.