Committees and commissions

The University of Göttingen regulates its affairs according to the principle of ‘academic self-administration’ and thus organises itself and its members. Important decisions on research, teaching and studies are therefore made in the university's central and decentralised committees and commissions. These committees exist at central level (e.g. the Senate as the highest central committee), but also at the Faculty of Biology and Psychology. All status groups are represented in them, i.e. professors, academic staff, students and non-academic employees, with different weightings depending on the committee.

• Faculty Council

  The Faculty Council is the highest committee of the faculty and decides on faculty matters of fundamental importance and strategic scope. It is elected by all members of the faculty as part of the university elections and is made up of 13 voting members from the groups of university lecturers, academic staff, students and technical and administrative staff.

  In the Faculty Council, the members of the other faculty committees are appointed by the respective status group representatives. It is chaired by the Dean of the Faculty, but without voting rights. The Faculty Council usually meets once a month during the lecture period.

• Committee for studies

  The Committee for Studies deals with issues relating to teaching, study programmes and examinations and is therefore the most important body for students. Relevant topics include, for example, ensuring the quality of studies, the further development of degree programmes, adjustments to the range of courses offered and the allocation of decentralised study quality funds. The Study Commission must be consulted before decisions are made by the Faculty Council on all matters relating to teaching, study programmes and examinations.

  Students have four out of eight voting seats on this commission, so that students have an equal say in decision-making. The chairperson is the Dean of Studies of the faculty, but without voting rights. The Study Commission usually meets once a month during the lecture period.

• Finance commission

  This committee discusses the faculty's finances (financial and material resources, personnel, rooms) and fundamental structural matters, which are then voted on by the Faculty Council.

• Examination boards

  The examination boards deal with the examination process. This includes decisions on requests for hardship cases in various contexts related to the examinations, the granting of examination authorisations for final theses, decisions on the final failure of students or applications for compensation for disadvantages.
  The decisions made by the Examination Board are implemented by the Faculty's Examination Office.

• Selection committees

  The selection committees (usually one per Master's degree programme) deal with the selection procedures in the application process for the individual Master's degree programmes. The main tasks of the selection committees are to check the suitability of non-subject-specific degrees (‘subject relevance’) in the application process, to conduct selection interviews and to coordinate the ranking lists. A student representative sits on the committee in an advisory capacity.