Bertelsmann Foundation

The Bertelsmann Foundation (German: Bertelsmann Stiftung) is the largest^[1] private operating non-profit foundation in Germany, created in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn. The Bertelsmann Foundation holds 77.4 percent of Bertelsmann AG.

The Bertelsmann Foundation is active in political, social, economic, educational, cultural and health-related issues. It does not provide grants, scholarships or project funding to others, but focuses on researching, publishing and stimulating public debate on its topics. It is active worldwide and has since inception spent around €868 million on nonprofit projects. The total budget for the 2010 fiscal year was €60.3 million, according to the foundation's annual report.^[2]

The Foundation is based in Gütersloh, with representations in Berlin, Washington D.C., and Brussels. The board includes Gunter Thielen (chairperson), Liz Mohn (deputy chairperson), Jörg Dräger and Brigitte Mohn.

Criticism

Bertelsmann Foundation has been criticised for their engagement in the political field, especially in educational and labour politics, where they were allegedly promoting neoliberal ideas such as an increase of competition in education and research and for the introduction of tuition fees to the German university system.^[3][4] The foundation has been accused of channeling their concepts into reforms of public universities in order to eliminate e.g. free access to education and academic autonomy.^[5]

References

1. ^ Foundation governance (from the official Bertelsmann Foundation website)
2. ^ Facts and figures (from the official Bertelsmann Foundation website, which apparently uses Session IDs in the URL, so links might not work.)
3. ^ Thomas Barth: Ideologieproduktion für den Profit, in: junge Welt, 01.08.2006, p 10 (german)
4. ^ The close cooperation with the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE) has been analysed by Kyrosch Alidusti from Bund demokratischer WissenschaftlerInnen in a German student magazine (studis-online): Wie das Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung Politik an Hochschulen macht [1] (german)
5. ^ Social Times: "Standort-Check ist neoliberal" - Bürgerrechtler kritisieren Bertelsmann Stiftung, see online (german)

External links

• Bertelsmann Foundation (official website, in English)

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