Die Ombudsstelle für Studierende, „Studierendenrechte“ und „-pflichten“ im österreichischen Hochschulraum: Zwischen sanfter Verwaltungskontrolle und proaktiver Syntegration

In 2012 an ombudsman was established at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Economy to serve the more than 380,000 students and 90,000 applicants each year in the Austrian Higher Education Area. This office functions mainly as a conciliation body working outside of formal procedures to resolve issues concerning study programmes, teaching, exams, service and administration. Like other ombudsman’s offices it exercises “soft administrative control” rather than legal jurisdiction. In its annual reports to the Minister for Science and to Parliament, the Ombudsman contributes to “syntegration”, i.e. the optimised implementation and adaptation of legal norms across the entire higher education system, by describing real cases and putting forward proposals to the relevant governing bodies and to legislators. A number of case studies are provided to illustrate this point. The paper concludes with reflections on the possibility of future reports in which names of higher education institutions might also be disclosed this departing from the current practice of preserving anonymity.