The Hertie School has been approved as a licensed university.
The Berlin Senate has officially approved the Hertie School as a state university so that the school can go ahead with the admission procedure for its postgraduate Master of Public Policy that will be offered in English from September 2005. Today, the chairman of the board of trustees of the Hertie School, Kurt Biedenkopf, thanked the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit and the Senator for Science, Research and Culture, Thomas Flierl on a press conference.
Since April, 1st 2005, Christiane Neumann is the new Managing Director of the Hertie School. Trained as a lawyer, she previously directed the Wissenschaftszentrum (WZB) Berlin für Sozialforschung (Social Science Research Center) for 13 years. She thus completes the executive board of the university, which consists of the Academic Director Professor Michael Zürn, as well as, since the beginning of the year, Jobst Fiedler (formerly a partner with Roland Berger).
Six other internationally trained professors will join the Hertie School.
The selection procedure of the faculty for the first year has almost been completed. Besides Michael Zürn as Dean and Jobst Fiedler as Associate Dean, six other professors will join the Hertie School team in Berlin. So far, the following professors have confirmed their participation: Steve Finkel (University of Virginia, USA), Stein Kuhnle (University of Bergen, Norway), and Sonja Wälti from Switzerland (Georgetown University, Washington D.C.). Professors from Germany will be Henrik Enderlein (Freie Universität Berlin), Claus Offe (Humboldt-Universität Berlin) and Ulrich K. Preuß (Freie Universität Berlin). "In our selection process, we carefully considered the applicants' academic excellence as well as their far-reaching international experience and a strong practical orientation", Kurt Biedenkopf, chairman of the board of trustees, states: "We have chosen our favourite candidates."