10 December 2025

Media information from the Thuringian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture


Erfurt, 10 December 2025

The Free State of Thuringia and its ten state universities today ceremoniously signed the agreement to extend the Higher Education Framework Agreement V by one year until the end of 2026 in the Thuringian state parliament. The extension agreement provides the universities with stability, continuity and planning security for the coming year in a phase of demographic and financial challenges. It enables a 3.5 per cent increase in state funding for 2026, which can also be used to cover the above-average growth in supply costs, thus ensuring the continuous fulfilment of tasks in research and teaching.

Photos: TMBWK / Jacob Schröter

The extension of the contractual framework was agreed in close consultation with the universities, as more time is needed for a fundamental orientation, discussion and definition of goals for the further development of the Thuringian higher education system beyond 2030. This intermediate planning year 2026 allows for an intensive coordination process in preparation for the upcoming Framework Agreement VI.

Minister President Mario Voigt emphasised the importance of the agreement for Thuringia: „Our universities are a magnet for the future and a fountain of youth for the entire state. We are giving them the promised reliability and planning security for 2026 and are embarking on the next steps together: we must increase the visibility of our science location, make greater use of synergies between the universities and lay the foundations for the competition for excellence. The extension of the framework agreement creates the time and the common understanding to now lay the foundations for an efficient higher education system beyond 2030.“

Science Minister Christian Tischner emphasised the strategic orientation and the concrete steps: „We are not shaping the necessary strategic reorientation of the higher education landscape in the coming years on the backs of the universities, but together with them, taking their specialist priorities into account. The extension agreement for 2026 was deliberately kept lean, but sets clear content priorities for the planning year: These include the steps to develop the university IT centre into a system house, the creation of a strategy for high-performance computing (HPC) and a stronger focus on teacher training to meet actual needs. In the course of the upcoming work on the content of Framework Agreement VI, we will conduct a well-founded and, above all, joint debate on profile development, the expansion of cooperation and the optimal use of resources.“

In addition to the upcoming coordination process for the long-term structural design of the Thuringian higher education landscape, the upcoming Framework Agreement VI will also focus on topics such as reducing bureaucracy by reducing reporting obligations and authorisation requirements, strengthening the commitment to peace and conflict research and the clear commitment to supporting spin-offs to strengthen transfer and innovation.

The extension agreement comes into force on 30 December 2025. Negotiations on the Higher Education Framework Agreement VI, which is again scheduled to run until at least 2030, are to start at the beginning of the 2026 planning year.

Further information can be found at:
https://bildung.thueringen.de/wissenschaft/hochschulentwicklung

This media information was published under:
https://bildung.thueringen.de