Survey on the Status of Digitization at German HEI Harald Gilch 1 , Anna Sophie Beise 2 , René Krempkow 3 , Marko Müller 4 , Friedrich Stratmann 5 , Klaus Wannemacher 6 1 HIS-Institut für Hochschulentwicklung, 30159 Hannover, Germany, gilch@his-he.de 2 Fachhochschule Bielefeld, UAS, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany, anna.beise@fh-bielefeld.de 3 Humboldt University of Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany, rene.krempkow@uv.hu-berlin.de 4 HIS-Institut für Hochschulentwicklung, 30159 Hannover, Germany, marko_mueller@web.de 5 HIS-Institut für Hochschulentwicklung, 30159 Hannover, Germany, stratmann-hannover@t-online.de 6 HIS-Institut für Hochschulentwicklung, 30159 Hannover, Germany, wannemacher@his-he.de Keywords Digitization, Universities, Germany 1. ABSTRACT The results of a survey on the digitization of universities in Germany prove that digitization is of great importance for the three dimensions of research, teaching and learning and administration in general, but that the actual implementation status of digitization at German universities is much more restrai- ned. Particularly in the area of administration, the actual level of digitization accomplished at German universities is still regarded as comparatively low. If the IT infrastructures and the systems implemen- ted are analyzed, the status quo is characterized by a large amount of different systems, most of which do not yet allow continuous workflows and are hardly integrated. Many universities show completely different levels of maturity for different systems. 2. RESULTS 2.1. Introduction Digitization has initiated a comprehensive process of differentiation at higher education institutions (HEI), transforming established forms of scientific and administrative work. Despite a number of studies on partial aspects, comprehensive surveys on HEI digitization have not yet been available, neither in Germany nor internationally. This is the background to the survey "Digitization of Higher Education" (Gilch et al. 2019a), conducted by the HIS Institute for Higher Education Development (HIS- HE) on behalf of the German Expert Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI 2019). The objective of the study was to analyze the process of HEI digitization, considering the dimensions of research, teaching and learning, administration and infrastructure. Methodically, the study focused on a partially standardized full survey among German university leaders, conducted in spring 2018. 119 from 395 universities (response rate: 30.1%) completed the questionnaire. The quantitative data were evaluated by means of descriptive analysis methods and multivariate analysis methods (cf. Gilch et al. 2019b). The study focuses in particular on the importance, strategies and objectives of digitization, the em- bedding of digitization in IT governance, the status and framework conditions of digitization, digital infrastructure, digital research, learning and governance, and recommendations for action to policy- makers. The most important survey results with a focus on status of digitization, digital strategies and system implementation in German universities are presented and discussed in this paper. 2.2. Status of Digitization With regard to the significance and status of digitization, a central result of the quantitative survey is that the significance of digitization at universities in Germany is generally rated as high. With regard to the whole institution, 82.6 percent of the university leaders rate the importance of digitization on