New guidelines: Uniform information for Weimar university researchers!

New guidelines: Uniform information for Weimar university researchers!

The Bauhaus University Weimar has introduced a new affiliation guideline to improve the visibility of its researchers and the consistency of institutional names in scientific publications. This important innovation was decided by the Executive Board on March 12, 2023 and came into force with the official publication on April 23, 2025. It is aimed at all research university members and aims to ensure that the university's publications are clearly identifiable.

The guidelines stipulate bindingly how the university should be named in academic papers. University President Prof. Peter Benz emphasizes that this represents a strategic measure to position the university in national and international competition. Providing uniform information is also intended to support findability in scientific search engines and ensure that publications in libraries, archives and databases can be clearly assigned.

Challenges and solutions

A key problem to which the new guideline responds is the risk that researchers will not be recognizable as members of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in rankings and citation databases, especially if only “Weimar University” or the faculty name is stated. To counteract this, the guidelines explain the correct use of the university name in German and English. The authors may also provide additional information about faculties, subject areas or project references.

The need for such guidelines was also clearly formulated in recommendations from the 24th HRK General Meeting on April 24, 2018. The term “affiliation” describes the affiliation of authors with research organizations and is particularly important for evaluating publication performance in science. The difficulties in naming institutional affiliation often arise when authors belong to several institutions. These multiple affiliations can arise through joint appointments or guest research stays.

The Bauhaus University's affiliation guidelines are part of a broader movement at German universities that aims to develop clear standards for the allocation of research achievements. These standards apply to academic staff, students, doctoral candidates and visiting researchers. If there is more than one affiliation, all relevant institutions must be specified in publications in order to automatically avoid contradictory requirements.

An impulse from within

The impetus for developing the new guidelines came from Kevin Lang, an employee of the research data management department at the Bauhaus University. His initiative was based on his own scientific study, the results of which were published in the open access journal o-bib. This study highlighted the need for consistent handling and accurate reporting of affiliations in order to maximize the visibility and impact of publications.

In a broader context, the University of Osnabrück has also adopted a “Guideline for the standardized indication of affiliation in scientific publications”. This guideline pursues similar objectives to the Weimar Guideline and emphasizes the importance of consistent, accurate and uniform disclosure of institutional affiliation, as this publication output is considered an indicator of research activity.

In summary, it can be said that the introduction of the new affiliation guidelines at the Bauhaus University Weimar is an important signal for improving the visibility of research achievements and promoting uniform scientific communication. The approach could serve as a model for other institutions in the future that want to address similar challenges related to affiliation naming.