I've been in London now for six weeks but I'm not as wise as I had hoped to be about some things. I still have a lot of questions and new ones are crop up every day. How is it that there aren't more private universities in this stronghold of privatisation? What effect has the country's "assessment culture" had on the direction of research? Is the British model – with its lectureships and readerships alongside the professorships – a way out of the dilemma faced of the overtaxed scientific staff at ETH where no such facilities exist? Are the small Anglo-Saxon research teams more innovative and more productive than their bigger Germanic cousins?

The last two questions are increasingly the subject of intense debates that generally conclude with a "yes". Judging by personal observations I too think that the creation of permanent positions in research and teaching – independent of professorships – offer a very good opportunity to make wider and better use of creative potential. It must be said, however, that the ensuing structures are not as free of hierarchies as is sometimes portrayed. More funds and status translate into more sought after co-operation partners. In principle though, everyone has to prove his or her own competence more and the possibilities of "allowed" co-operation are a lot less restricted. If, therefore, a high level of co-operation exists despite simultaneously high levels of expectation regarding performance and competition, this surely has something to do with the different institutional structures.

It is also connected to the size and cohesion of the research teams. One of the biggest challenges in this respect is to create a "school of thought" because this thought structure will be tried and tested in more diverse, less hierarchical co-operation relationships.

Columnist Gudela Grote, ETH Professor of Occupational and Organisational Psychology.

If successful the stability of such structures will have increased owing to all the additional examinations and revisions it has survived. In addition chances arise for "small innovations" from particular co-operations, each with its own inherent value, which does not necessarily provide a building block for a big monument.

All of this, together with a sophisticated system of assessment at the universities, naturally creates huge pressure to succeed, and this pressure has to be borne. And yet from a material point of view, compared to the situation for middle-level academics at the Germanic universities, a career route here is more secure thanks to permanent lecturer positions for more scientists at an earlier point in their careers. Existential insecurity is reduced and this frees up energy to meet the challenges of scientific competition.

But it did disconcert me somewhat to hear a colleague, from a department that had received a good assessment report, say that because of the chosen assessment criteria – especially the number of publications in "high ranking journals“ – the wide range of scientific and thematic directions was in danger of losing out to scientific competition. In psychology, for example, there might soon only be scientists carrying out brain research using the newest imagery methods, because only this group could produce the required number of publications in "Nature" or "Science". Whether only this research will make the world a better place to live in is a question that different people probably answer differently.

On the other hand, I'm impressed when I meet colleagues from my own area of expertise, occupational and organisational psychology, who – while fulfilling academic criteria to the highest degree as well as carrying out very useful programme and application oriented research – manage to improve conditions in people's everyday lives, at least in the working world. In this point the British academic system nurtures quality of work in a dual sense – one that I would like to emulate.