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Fulda's university president Karim Khakzar is giving up his role as spokesman for the universities of applied sciences in Hesse after two years.
Fulda/Darmstadt – His successor will be the previous deputy Prof. Dr. Arnd Steinmetz, President of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. The election took place on Monday in Darmstadt. The new deputy will be Prof. Dr. Matthias Willems, President of the Central Hesse University of Technology.
As speaker, Prof. Dr. Karim Khakzar has represented the interests of the seven universities of applied sciences in the past two years Hesse and represented them in politics and ministries. He also coordinated cross-university collaboration. His term of office was primarily characterized by the difficult and lengthy negotiations on the Hessian Higher Education Pact (HHSP) 2026-2031, according to a statement about the change in speaker.
Karim Khakzar relinquishes the position of spokesman for the Hessian universities
“The negotiations on a university pact with a term of six years took place under a tense budget situation in Hesse. With slightly declining budgets, the universities have to cope with additional expenditure due to high collective agreements, inflation and high energy costs,” says Khakzar looking back and at the same time emphasizing: “Especially in a phase of great financial and structural challenges, it was important to pool the positions of the Hessian universities of applied sciences and reliably represent them.”
Another milestone of the past term of office was the strengthening of the scientific qualification offerings at the Hessian universities of applied sciences (HAW). the cross-university doctoral center “System-Integrated Engineering”, which was set up on October 1, 2025.
According to his own statement, Arnd Steinmetz would like to build on what has been achieved and use the upcoming speaker role to develop the Hessian universities well through the demanding current university pact period in close cooperation with the speakers from the universities and art colleges.
