Weighing up opportunities and risks for scientific cooperation in a changing world: the digital KIWi Compass ‘No red lines’ provides guidance for universities and scientific institutions.

Science does not take place in a vacuum. International crises, wars, conflicts and changing political conditions pose enormous challenges for universities and scientific institutions. The criteria-based guide KIWi Compass ‘No Red Lines’ from the DAAD Centre for International Academic Cooperation (KIWi) is now available in an updated version, in a new digital format and — for the first time — also in English.

Making decisions — fully informed

With the KIWi Compass ‘No red Lines’, the DAAD has been providing an informed and reflective basis for weighing up opportunities and risks — using clear criteria — since 2020. Regarding potential international partners, the fields of ‘security situation’, ‘wider political imperatives’, ‘constitutional and sociopolitical imperatives’, ‘opportunities and risks of the respective academic system’, ‘quality of academic partner institutions’ and ‘integration into institutional strategies’ are analysed. Sub-criteria are also defined and linked to sensitisation questions and reference sources to take better account of the different cooperation conditions in each case.

This is a unique feature of the DAAD guide, which is now available in digital form for the first time. The KIWi Compass ‘No red Lines’ provides in-depth information and reference values that help to establish or realign processes for cooperation management. DAAD President Professor Joybrato Mukherjee emphasises that it is a ‘sensitive process of analysis and negotiation, which must be based on an honest and rational weighing up of interests, opportunities and risks’. A categorical definition of ‘red lines’ is not expedient: ‘Rather, the focus should be on examining and negotiating specific cooperation conditions in concrete constellations. This naturally also includes — in each individual case — the question of when limits are reached and specific forms of cooperation are no longer justifiable.’