Higher Education Centers in Post-Graduate formation. The

The German university system experiences a high impact for change. The Bologna-Process fostering a European knowledge and economic area by setting up a standardization process for a European wide academic system meets a German University system in which reform processes are overdue since the introduction of German Mass Universities in the 1970ies. Humboldt’s paradigm of “freedom and unity of research and teaching ” is still very high regarded amongst German academic members. But increasing numbers of students with constant teaching capacities alongside lack basic conditions for careful monitoring of student’s academic development. Universities missions for an academic formation have shifted from a research career oriented goal to a scientific formation for a future non-academic employment goal. Both processes influence discourses regarding the reform of Post-Graduate formation. Two models can be distinguished, the research apprenticeship model based on an indi-vidual student-professors relationship and the network model sup-porting the idea of interdisciplinary research work within teams. Referring to the results of two German surveys on doctoral formation both models will be discussed in order to distinguish new tasks fo