Selected countries and the OECD and EU25 averages. Navy: completion within the theoretical programme duration plus one year. Blue: Germany, completion within eight semesters for students who began in 2020. Definitions and observation periods differ, so comparability is limited. The remaining shares are not dropout rates.
RegelWerk at the Leibniz Europe Office anniversary
1 September 2026 · Event in Brussels
RegelWerk was represented by project partner RWI at the Leibniz Europe Office’s 20th anniversary. The event brought together researchers, policymakers and civil society to discuss Europe’s future.
Shirin Reiter and Jan-Christoph Ohnesorge (DZHW) presented their research on student service and examination rules in Germany at HERDSA 2026. Their presentation explored how student autonomy and the binding nature of institutional rules relate to student success.
Does student autonomy hinder student success? Student service and examination rules in Germany and their impact on graduation rates. Presented by Shirin Reiter and Jan-Christoph Ohnesorge, German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW). 8 July 2026, 16:30–16:55 local time, National University of Singapore. Read the abstract (PDF).
Conference banner: HERDSA 2026
Comparing examination regulations across universities
3 December 2025 · Publication
Douglas Blank and Stefan Conrad introduce a prototype for comparing the meaning of paragraphs in examination regulations across universities.
Towards Semantic Comparison of Examination Regulations: A Prototype for Cross-Institutional Paragraph Analysis. Douglas Blank & Stefan Conrad (2025). Proceedings of the 36th GI-Workshop Grundlagen von Datenbanken (29 September–1 October 2025, Regensburg, Germany), pp. 73–78. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 4118. View the proceedings.
Foundations of Databases workshop 2025
Team and partners
The research group
RegelWerk brings together economics, sociology, political science and computer science. Researchers at RWI, Leibniz University Hannover, DZHW and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf jointly investigate how institutional rules relate to students’ progress and success.
How can we better understand students’ progress? These selected studies connect with RegelWerk’s research questions. They come from related research projects and are not direct outputs of RegelWerk.
Institutional rules
Hönnige et al. (2024)
This working paper develops an Index of Commitment for student service and examination rules and compares regulations across Germany’s 16 federal states.
Using data from a German university, this study examines how the abolition of tuition fees relates to changes in study activity and the timing of graduation.
How difficult a text feels also depends on its readers. This study examines how linguistic features and individual characteristics predict perceived text complexity.
