Specifics and Potentials of Public-Private Partnerships for Universities and Research Facilities in Germany

Public universities and research facilities in Germany are very much transforming due to political, legal and organizational changes. Additionally, the number of students will increase in the next eight years by 35 percent. The requirements of users in terms of rooms and services are changing very fast too. A lack of necessary maintenance and intended building projects are already obviously.These future challenges are just solvable by appropriate actions and new concepts in public real estate management. It is stated in this paper, that addressing life cycle issues in project development helps to satisfy the present and future needs of the academies. As a step along the road Public Private Partnerships (PPP) function as a new procurement route in order to deliver public buildings in an efficient manner under life cycle aspects. The aim of this paper is to investigate factors which are important for the application of PPP in the university sector. A set of 51 questions was developed based on literature review and experts opinion. The questionnaire is used in semi-structured interviews with real estate professionals at different types of German academies such as universities, colleges, research institutions and student facilities. The data collected during the interviews is analysed concerning life cycle optimisations and risk transfer potential within a PPP procurement route. The results of the investigation show that PPP as a procurement route is equally applicable for university and research facilities. Furthermore, the application of the life cycle concept affords focusing on real estate related benchmarking data.