“The cross-divisional structure should be regarded as an opportunity”
News from 08/20/2020
Division of the SPK into three independent parts fails to gain majority support. The Advisory Board gives its opinion on the Science Council’s evaluation paper.
On August 17, the Advisory Board of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) considered the recommendations made by the Wissenschaftsrat (German Council of Sciences and Humanities) as a result of its evaluation of the SPK’s structure. It then held a vote, which is recorded here for the first time. The advisory board is chaired by the Director of the German National Library, Ute Schwens, and its members are: Marion Ackermann, Director General of the Dresden State Art Collections; Klaus Ceynowa, Director General of the Bavarian State Library; Ulrike Fless, President of the German Archaeological Institute; Daniel Hess, Director General of the German National Museum in Nuremberg; Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen from the Musicological Institute of the University of Zurich; Michael Hollmann, President of the Federal Archives; Reinhard Laube, Director of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar; Wiebke Arndt, Director of the Overseas Museum in Bremen; Anne Lipp, Head of the Scientific Library Services and Information Systems Division at the DFG; Wolfram Horstmann, Director of the Lower Saxony State and University Library; Bernhard Maaz, Director General of the Bavarian State Painting Collections; Dirk Messner, President of the Federal Environment Agency; Pia Müller-Tamm, Director of the State Art Gallery in Karlsruhe, and Johanna Rachinger, Director General of the Austrian National Library. The wording of the resolution passed by the Advisory Board is as follows:
The members of the Advisory Board of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz thank the Science Council for its structural recommendations and for its differentiated approach to the individual institutions. The comprehensive final report goes into detail about the strengths and weaknesses of both the body as a whole and its individual organizational parts, and it makes valuable suggestions about opportunities for improvement in the future. In particular, the remarks about the financial and human resources of the Foundation as well as the scientific and administrative autonomy of its institutions are plausible. The reasoning behind the final recommendations for the governance structure is less clear. The far-reaching demand for the overall structure to be dissolved is not sufficiently justified on the basis of the analyses presented. Among other things, a detailed examination and critical appraisal of the tasks and services of the Central Administration is lacking here, as is a comparative analysis of the Central Administration with the functions of the General Directorate of the SMB. On the question of how best to implement the recommended improvements, the Advisory Board therefore reaches a different conclusion than the expert assessors.
In detail: In the view of the Advisory Board, the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz is an umbrella organization that builds upon a set of historical circumstances and, precisely because of its unified and diverse nature, is of great scientific and cultural interest both nationally and internationally. In particular, the permeability of its various divisions and the enhanced interrelation of content correspond to modern concepts of scientific and cultural work assisted by digital processes and developments.
Nevertheless, over the years since the founding of the SPK, a dual structure has arisen, with the President’s Department / Central Administration on the one hand and the SMB conglomerate with its General Directorate on the other. Attempts to get to grips with this organizationally and administratively also have consequences for the Foundation’s other institutions.
The Science Council’s recommendations are therefore crucial to the future viability of the SPK and, especially, of the Staatliche Museen. Consequently, the SMB in particular should be more closely involved in the debate about the future shape of the SPK.
The basic message of the recommendations is that there is a need to give the SPK’s institutions greater autonomy, responsibility, and scope of action.
Greater autonomy and devolved management can be achieved primarily by providing adequate personnel and financial resources as well as scope for independent decision-making within a framework set up for these areas. This includes the provision of sufficient funding for the functional and material maintenance of the individual institutions and their valuable collections, for interaction with users, and for taking on new tasks: for example, creating modern channels for communicating museum content. Only thus will it be possible to perform the core tasks of the institutions adequately.
A balanced arrangement is needed between those administrative services and infrastructures whose joint use relieves the workload on the institutions and increases their scope of action, for example in the area of digital services (administrative IT, computer capacities, legal services etc.) and those whose operation needs to be tailored to a specific divisional profile, for example the aspects of marketing and public relations that are specific to a particular institution.
Any discussion within the SPK about these radical structural reforms must take place with the participation of the heads of the institutions and, further down the line, of all employees; only thus may one expect the changes to gain acceptance within the Foundation itself. In the case of the SMB, “heads of the institutions” means the managements of all the museums and institutes, not just the General Directorate of the SMB. The individual museums and institutes, like the other institutions, must be able to participate in the process when their scope of action and their autonomy are being decided. In addition, external support and/or moderation, provided for example by an organizational psychologist, could be helpful in these discussions.
The division of the Foundation into three independent parts with a partially independent connection of the IAI as an affiliate institute of the Staatsbibliothek (State Library) and the dissolution of the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung (State Institute for Music Research) is not supported by the majority of the members of the Advisory Board.
The reasons are as follows
- The presently existing cross-divisional interdisciplinary structure should be regarded as an opportunity to organize the Foundation’s work in a forward-looking, interdisciplinary way, rather than reinforcing traditional disciplinary boundaries by splitting it into divisions.
- In the international context, an opportunity would be wasted. Even if the SPK is currently poorly positioned in organizational terms, it is still the only cultural institution in the German-speaking countries that can compare at all with corresponding institutions abroad. The connection between culture, art, science, and research that is inherent in the SPK corresponds to international trends and offers a suitable basis for dealing with global challenges.
- The consequences for the individual institutions would be far-reaching, including the parallel development of the necessary infrastructure (which currently lies within the remit of the Foundation’s AGM), an increase in finances and personnel, and the possible amalgamation of institutions within a division.
- A long period of time will have to be planned for holding the requisite political and legal discussions about the dissolution of the Foundation and the transfer of responsibility to the federal government, which would bring no benefit for the core work of the SPK.