This website is using cookies to ensure you get the best experience possible on our website.
More info: Privacy & Cookies, Imprint
The number of doctoral students at German universities reached a new high in 2022 with a total of 205,300 people. This means an increase of 2% compared to the previous year, as the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced today. The data also show a notable gender distribution as well as interesting trends across disciplines.
The doctoral landscape in Germany reflects a balanced gender distribution. The proportion of women among doctoral students remained stable at 48% (98,400 people), while the proportion of men was 52% (106,900 people). The age structure of the doctoral students also showed differences: the average age was 30.3 years, with male doctoral students at 30.7 years being almost a year older than their female colleagues at 29.9 years. The proportion of foreign doctoral candidates is also impressive, at 23% (48,100 people).
Within the departments, the subject group human medicine/health sciences is the largest group with a share of 26% (54,000 people). This is followed by mathematics and natural sciences with 23% (47,200 people), engineering with 18% (37,600 people) and law, economics and social sciences with 16% (33,600 people).
The gender-specific distribution varied significantly depending on the department. In engineering, for example, around 78% of doctoral students were men, while in the subject group art, art science 66% were women. In terms of absolute numbers, men dominated engineering with 29,200 doctoral students, while women dominated with 33,300 doctoral students in the human medicine/health sciences subject group.
A look at the number of beginners shows that 16% (33,100 people) of doctoral students in 2022 were enrolled at a German university for the first time. This represents a decrease of 9% compared to 2021. The average age of the first doctoral students was 26.9 years, with male beginners at 27.2 years being slightly older than females at 26.6 years. Around 27% (8,800 people) of first-time doctoral students were foreign nationals.
Interestingly, PhD activity was concentrated in just four universities, which together hosted 16% of PhD students. At the top of this list were the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, each with 8,900 doctoral students, followed by the Technical University of Munich (8,500) and the Technical University of Aachen (7,300). The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn (6,500) and the Technical University of Dresden (6,400) also recorded significant doctoral activity.
This data comes from the doctoral statistics, which has been in operation since 2017 and records all ongoing doctoral projects at German universities. Since the statistics were still under construction before 2020, no comparable data is available for previous years.
The Hamburg economy is experiencing a veritable start-up boom, according to a recent press release from the Statistical Office North. In the first half of 2023, 2,847 new businesses were founded in the Hanseatic city - an increase of a remarkable 18 percent compared to the same period last year. This not only represents a remarkable increase, but also marks a historic high since records began in 2008.
The dynamic development on the start-up market is not only reflected in the high start-up figures, but also in a positive balance of business start-ups and closures. A total of 1,568 more businesses were founded than discontinued. This positive difference underscores the strength and attractiveness of Hamburg as a business location.
Although the reasons for the increase may be manifold, it is striking that the propensity to start a business varies across Hamburg's districts. Business startup rates range from 0.6 in the Bergedorf district to a remarkable 4.2 in Hamburg-Mitte. The situation is particularly remarkable in the district of Hamburg-Mitte, where the number of business start-ups increased by more than 60 percent within one year. This could indicate a special dynamic in this district, which is characterized by entrepreneurial innovation and economic growth.
In order for a business start-up to be recorded in the statistics, certain criteria must be met. These include, for example, the legal form of the business or the number of employees. Businesses founded by natural persons can also be included in the statistics, provided they are entered in the commercial register, employ staff or have a craftsman's card at the time of foundation. The statistics thus provide an insight into those start-ups that are particularly relevant due to their economic significance.
A look at the number of start-ups per 1,000 inhabitants shows that 1.5 businesses were founded per 1,000 people in Hamburg. This figure illustrates the breadth of start-up activity within the city.
The development of business start-ups in Hamburg in the first half of 2023 not only shows a pleasing increase, but also points to the city's vibrant and diverse business landscape. The positive development of the start-up market could lead to a further strengthening of Hamburg's economy in the coming months and years and create new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
The German parcel market has seen a decline in deliveries for the first time since 2013. According to research by Pitney Bowes, an international postal services provider, parcel shipments in this country fell nearly 7 percent year-on-year to 4.2 billion. This is partly due to normalization after the surge during the corona pandemic.
Industry leader DHL, a subsidiary of Deutsche Post, lost nearly 9 percent of its market share. Other companies such as Hermes, GLS, UPS and DPD also saw slight declines. In U.S. dollar terms, the overall German parcel market shrank 12.9 percent to $25 billion.
This development is attributed to weak consumer sentiment in Germany and a decline in online sales. Year-on-year, online sales fell 12.2 percent to 19.17 billion euros in Q2 2023.
In contrast, the global parcel market nevertheless saw growth of 1 percent to 161 billion shipments, with India standing out with an 18 percent increase. DHL has benefited from this boom in India after it acquired Blue Dart, an Indian delivery company, in 2006.
Fast lenses with a wide aperture (e.g. f/2.8) are important for press photographers for several reasons:
Low light conditions: In many situations where press photographers work, there is low light, whether indoors, in bad weather, or at dusk.Fast lenses allow more light to reach the sensor or film, resulting in faster shutter speeds and better image quality.
Flexibility: Fast lenses offer greater creative flexibility. With a wide aperture, photographers can selectively blur the background to emphasize the main subject.This is especially useful when the background is distracting or unsightly.
Freedom of movement: using a fast lens allows photographers to shoot handheld in low-light conditions without relying on a tripod or flash. This is especially important in fast, changing situations, such as those often encountered at press events.
Fast focusing: faster lenses often have faster and more precise autofocus mechanisms as well. This is crucial for getting moving subjects in focus and not missing the decisive moment at sporting events, political events, or other press events.
Professional image quality: Fast lenses are usually high-quality optics that deliver sharp, detailed, and true-color images. This is important for press photographers, who need to deliver high-quality images that are suitable for print or publication.
Discreet photography: In some situations, such as reportage or events where photographers need to act unobtrusively, fast lenses enable photography with a shallow depth of field.
This allows the photographer to focus on the main subject and deliberately blur the rest of the image, allowing for unobtrusive and respectful documentation.Overall, fast lenses offer press photographers the ability to achieve optimal results and express their creative vision in difficult lighting situations and rapidly changing circumstances.Therefore, they are a valuable tool in their professional working environment.
There are several reasons why developers should rely on the Symfony framework. Symfony is a powerful, flexible, and well-established PHP framework that is particularly suited for developing sophisticated web applications and APIs. Here are some reasons why Symfony might be a good choice:
Modularity and reusability:
Symfony follows the concept of "bundles", which encapsulate individual functions or features. This makes the application modular and facilitates the reuse of code in different projects.Strong community and documentation: Symfony has a large and active developer community. This leads to extensive documentation, tutorials, forums, and extensions that can help you with development and problem solving.
Stability and long term support: Symfony puts a lot of emphasis on stability and compatibility. New versions are released with Long-Term Support (LTS), which means you get security updates and bug fixes for an extended period of time.
Symfony is a stable and compatible development platform.
Flexible architecture: Symfony allows you to customize the architecture of your application according to the requirements. It offers various components that can be deployed in different configurations.
Security: Symfony includes many built-in security features that help protect your application from common security issues, such as cross-site scripting (XSS) or SQL injection.
Performance: Symfony places great emphasis on optimal performance. The use of caching mechanisms, dependency collection and efficient processing of requests are important aspects.
Testability: Symfony encourages code testing from the start. It provides tools and methods to easily create unit and integration tests, which can lead to higher overall code quality.
Testability.
Internationalization and localization: if your application needs to be multilingual, Symfony provides built-in support for internationalization and localization.
Database integration flexibility: Symfony enables the use of various database backends and object-relational mapping (ORM) tools, including Doctrine, making database integration flexible and powerful.