topic Academia

Junior Professorship

The junior professorship was introduced in 2002 under the 5th Amendment to the Framework Act for Higher Education (5th HRGÄndG). The establishment of a new legal basis for junior professorships became necessary following the Federal Constitutional Court's ruling of 27 July 2004, which, inter alia, declared the framework regulation for junior professorships unconstitutional and void. The Amendment to Administrative and Labour Regulations in Higher Education entered into force on 31 December 2004. It provides a stable legal basis for the continuation of junior professorships. Under the amendment to the Basic Law (Federalism Reform), which came into effect on 1 September 2006, it is the Länder that are responsible for the higher education sector and thus for the regulations regarding junior professorships, including tenure track and remuneration. This means that the individual Länder can apply differing regulations and can make different use of these competencies.

In the meantime, all the Länder have incorporated the category of "junior professor" in their respective Higher Education Acts. Junior professorships have become an everyday feature at German institutions of higher education. Nationwide, approximately 900 junior professorships have been set up at 65 universities. Two thirds of these positions are already occupied, some of them by young academics from abroad. The Federal Statistical Office publishes details of junior professorships (Fachserie 11 Reihe 4.4 "Personal an Hochschulen"). About one in seven of the junior researchers already appointed came from abroad; many of them were Germans returning to Germany. The proportion of women is 35.6 percent compared with 17.4 percent for professorships as a whole.

The junior professorship is providing an important contribution to making Germany and German science more attractive in the international competition for the brightest minds. It represents a new type of academic qualification which, especially in conjunction with the tenure option, makes the German higher education scene more attractive when competing for researchers both at home and abroad. But junior professorships are just one of a number of measures to achieve this goal.

Information on junior professorships is to be found in Section 2.2.2.1 of the first Federal Government Report on the Promotion of Young Researchers. Details of further reading on the topic of junior professorships can be found in the bibliography (Literaturverzeichnis) in the Annex; statistical details are available under 1.3. "Ergänzender Statistikanhang".