University medicine

In its ‘Recommendations on the professional development of medicine with a special focus on preclinical and clinical-theoretical subjects’ (2025 in German only), the WR addresses the range of subjects within medicine and perspectives for their further development. Based on the recognition that the body of knowledge and methods in medicine must be preserved and further developed as a whole, without requiring every subject to be maintained at every location, the WR advocates for subject- and location-specific approaches. Key areas of action are strategy development at university medical sites, forward-looking personnel development, and the provision of adequate infrastructure and resources. Finally, a chapter of the recommendations explicitly deals with forensic medicine, which can be regarded as a special medical discipline at the interface of the scientific and legal systems.

In its recommendations on the future role of university medicine at the interface between science and health systems from 2021 (German version only) the WR emphasised the key role that university medicine plays. Therefore, the future role of university medicine in the overall system must also be clarified, so as to better exploit its great potential. The primary goal of the WR’s recommendations is to distinguish university medicine in a more pronounced way as a central institution within a future-viable and crisis-proof healthcare system, in addition to its key role in research and teaching. This requires consistent strategy development at the interface between science and the healthcare system – which calls upon the active engagement of both the federal and state governments as well as science and health policymakers.

In its recommendations on perspectives of university medicine (2016, in German only) the WR focuses on the framework conditions and resources that University Medicine requires in order to continue to fulfil its tasks in research, teaching and patient care in the future. Among other things, it recommends the establishment of profile areas in University Medicine. These should be characterised by organisational structures which are based on the division of labour and thereby provide scope for the process of functional differentiation in research, teaching and clinical care.