I wrote quite recently about the special issue of Science about research in Germany. This time Nature has found space to write this about the current direction of German universities.
The article takes advantage of the recent (Nobel) successes of German science to comment on the new governmental approach to science funding in which the universities are not treated equally. Winners of the second round of the excellence initiative: the technical university of Aachen, the universities of Freiburg, Heidelberg, Göttingen and Kostanz and the Free University of Berlin join the winners of the first round: the technical universities of Munich and Karlsruhe and the Ludwig Maximiliam University of Munich. Then the writer goes on to focus on all the positive things that will come from this new approach (like a perceived increase in the capability to compete with American universities) but also mentions the things that are not likely to change: that the majority of the PhD students and postdocs in Germany are unlikely to ever get a non-temporal position.
It is also worth noting that asides to some mention to an advertisement of Dresden there is no much mention to the fact that no former GDR university has managed to achieve the status of elite university despite hopes of Humboldt University of Berlin, Leipzig or Dresden.
Definitely very interesting articles and it is exciting to see how science has been evolving in Germany over the last few years. Apart from those articles it is also worth having a look at the Advertorials placed in Nature by various Germany Insitutes and Universities. This will also give you a broader picture of the goings-on: Spotlight on Germany
sorry the link here: http://publishing.yudu.com/A4ree/SpotlightGermanyNov