Abstract
Expert committees are frequently called into institutions to analyse the status quo and make recommendations for improvement or change. This is so within the fields of medicine and law, and increasingly so within the field of education, and higher education in particular. Little is known, however, about the mechanisms at work within such expert committees in any of these contexts as literature is surprisingly scarce. German higher education is presently undergoing a process of change as it moves towards a three-tiered degree structure: Bachelor, Masters and doctorate. Experts are being called upon to examine the state of education and make recommendations that can have a major impact on the future of a discipline or department. It is the aim of this article to reveal some of the issues that need addressing when the focus of study is the people who make up expert evaluation commissions.