Junior professorship & tenure track professorship

Osnabrück University is a pioneer in the establishment of W1 professorships ('junior professorships') in Germany and made the first four appointments back in 2002 - immediately after the legal framework was put in place. After almost two decades of experience with this new job category and with the approval of € 8.5 million in funding from the tenure track program of the federal and state governments in 2019 for the "Tenure Track konsequent" concept, Osnabrück University has made a groundbreaking fundamental decision to implement the W1 professorship with tenure track as a central instrument for personnel and content renewal on a permanent basis. To this end, all W2 professorships that are scheduled to become vacant will be transferred to a central job pool from which W1 professorships with tenure track will be created. At Osnabrück University, the W1 professorship with tenure track is thus at the center of academic career development and describes the standard case of entry into a lifetime professorship. With this model, Osnabrück University actively supports the structural policy goals of the tenure-track program to enable better planning of academic careers and at the same time to create structural framework conditions to increase the proportion of female academics who opt for a professorial career.

No, it is only because of the funding system used that the impression can be wrongly created that these are early appointments. The Osnabrück University tenure-track model is intended to accelerate the further development of the university in terms of content as well as personnel. With the establishment of the individual W1 professorships, new thematic impulses are realized in the subjects. The W1 professorships therefore have denominations that were generally not previously available in the subject (an exception to the use of new denominations is possible if general subject area designations are used for denominations in the subject culture; nonetheless, even in these cases it is expected that the establishment of the W1 professorship will provide new thematic impetus for the purpose of profile development). At the same time, however, the realization of content renewal through the W1 professorship does not preclude the creation of a W1 professorship - with new thematic impulses - in a subject area in which a filled W2 position will become vacant in the near future and at the same time the preservation of the existing subject area is absolutely necessary for the curriculum or the spectrum of existing sub-disciplines in the subject.

Legal requirements of the state budget regulations make it necessary to designate the existing W2 position in the university's staffing plan at the time of establishing a W1 professorship with tenure track, which will be used for the permanent follow-up financing of the W1 professorship. However, it should not be wrongly concluded from this correlation, which is necessary for position planning purposes, that these are early appointments in the sense of a successor to an existing professorship.

The Osnabrück "tenure track consistent" concept provides for an overlap of up to three years between the establishment of a W1 professorship and an occupied W2 position, which is transferred to the central job pool when the incumbent leaves. This should also not lead to the erroneous conclusion that these are early appointments, as this overlap serves to create structural framework conditions through the temporarily increased teaching capacity in the subject so that the W1 professorship is not overloaded in its first phase, particularly in the area of teaching and examination tasks.

W1 professorships are part of the group of university teachers who "qualify for appointment as professors at a university or equivalent institution of higher education [...] through the independent performance of the tasks incumbent on their university in science and art, research and teaching as well as further education and service". (§ 30 para. 1 NHG). With regard to the title, the NHG states: "Junior professors use the academic title 'professor' for the duration of their employment." (§ 30 para. 6 NHG).

The designation "junior professor" provided for by law (§ 30 NHG, §§ 47, 48 HRG) is generally only used by Osnabrück University in textual representations if it does not have the function of a person-specific title, but is used to address the special framework conditions of this subgroup of full-time academic staff. Osnabrück University prefers the more neutral term "W1 professorship" to the term "junior professorship".

The implementation of the interim evaluation is regulated in the  appointment regulations (PDF, 2.00 MB) (see § 27-28 of the appointment regulations (BerO); the key points are as follows:

The W1 professor applies to the Dean's Office for an extension of the employment relationship at least six months before the end of the three-year period of service by submitting the self-evaluation report (including the results of the teaching evaluations). In practice, this means that, as a rule, the self-evaluation report will be submitted two years after taking up the post.

A positive interim evaluation is recognized as equivalent to habilitation in appointment procedures at Osnabrück University. In this sense, the interim evaluation checks whether the W1 professor has acquired the qualification for appointment to a professorship. In the case of W1 professorships with tenure track, the function of the interim evaluation is also to check whether the W1 professor is well on the way to having fulfilled the tenure criteria at the time of the final tenure evaluation.

There are binding guidelines for writing and structuring the self-evaluation report in Annex 10 of the appointment regulations. The school executive board then appoints two external reviewers and an internal rapporteur who, after receiving the reviews, draws up a report which, following a decision by the school executive board, is also handed over to the W1 professor for guidance. The school executive board, with the involvement of the central equal opportunities officer, decides on the basis of the self-report, the teaching evaluations, the statement of the dean of studies and the external expert opinions whether the extension of the employment relationship should be proposed to the Executive Board. The final decision on the extension of the employment relationship is made by the Executive Board.

The implementation of the tenure evaluation is regulated in the  appointment regulations (PDF, 2.00 MB) (see in particular § 22 and § 29-30 of the appointment regulations). In accordance with the requirements of the NHG, this is formally - unlike in the case of the interim evaluation - an appointment procedure in which the Osnabrück University Tenure Commission, which is an interdisciplinary body, is involved in the run-up to the decision of the school executive board. The procedure is initiated by the W1 professor no later than nine months before the end of the employment contract with the submission of the self-report (again in accordance with Annex 10 of the appointment regulations). The Tenure Commission, which is appointed by the President at the request of the Dean, consists of three permanent members of the University's group of professors and three additional members who are appointed on a case-by-case basis by the school executive board in agreement with the President's Office. These are two relevant external academics and one member of the group of university lecturers of the respective school. The tenure committee obtains two external expert opinions and then makes a recommendation to the school executive board. The appointment procedure then provides for resolutions to be passed by the School Executive Board, the Senate, which usually gives its opinion through the standing Senate Committee for Appointments and Self-Administration (ABS), the Presidential Board and the University Council (details in §§ 22, 18, 19 of the appointment regulations).

The possibility of taking into account updated information compared to the self-evaluation report, e.g. on the acceptance of submitted publications, in the ongoing appointment procedure must be discussed with the Dean's Office on a case-by-case basis.

If a W1 professor receives an external appointment to a permanent W2 or W3 university professorship after a successful interim evaluation, the final appointment procedure can be brought forward and the involvement of the tenure committee - and thus the obtaining of external reviews by the tenure committee - can be waived.

The tenure criteria are decided by the school executive board and the Presidential Board before a W1 professorship is advertised. There is a sample template for drafting the tenure criteria in Annex 9 of the  appointment regulations (PDF, 2.00 MB). The tenure criteria are handed over to the W1 professor by the Dean's Office for orientation immediately after taking up office.

The function of the interim evaluation is to check whether the W1 professor is well on the way to having fulfilled the tenure criteria at the time of the final tenure evaluation. For the final tenure evaluation, the W1 professor should be guided as closely as possible by the fulfillment of the individual tenure criteria. However, deviations are possible and should be explained in detail in the self-evaluation report. The decisive factor is whether the W1 professor has fulfilled the overall picture of academic performance, which is drawn by the sum of the tenure criteria. Substantial deviations from the tenure criteria should, however, be discussed with the dean as early as possible.

In order to ensure an independent assessment, W1 professors do not formally have the right to be involved in the selection of reviewers for the interim or tenure evaluation. The reviewers for the interim evaluation are appointed by the school executive board, the reviewers for the tenure evaluation are appointed by the tenure committee.

The Dean's Office must ensure, particularly with regard to the interim evaluation, that no so-called 'courtesy reviews' are obtained. At the same time, an informal exchange between the Dean's Office and the W1 professor should ensure that the selection of the reviewers does not address any interdisciplinary school conflicts in addition to formal biases (in accordance with § 9 of the Osnabrück University's  appointment regulations (PDF, 2.00 MB) ) and that an independent vote can be assumed.

Participation in the self-administration of the university is an original part of a professorial activity; when filling W1 professorships, the expected commitment is usually indicated in the advertisement text and is usually also part of the tenure criteria. The expected amount of time is usually not specified; this is therefore the result of a careful agreement between the dean's office (or institute management) and the W1 professor. In particular, the assumption of time-consuming functional offices (Dean of Studies, Chair of the Examination Board) should generally not take place during the W1 professorship phase, i.e. before the tenure is terminated. In principle, the dean's office or institute management must ensure that the associated time burden does not substantially impair the fulfillment of the tenure criteria in the areas of research, studies and teaching in the long term.

Research alliances, especially externally funded research alliances, play an outstanding role in building the profile of Osnabrück University. If the subject area represented by a W1 professorship can contribute in a coherent and substantial way to the research program of an internal university network, there is an expectation that project participation will be seriously considered. However, project participation does not imply that the project-specific issues will be made the exclusive new focus of the W1 professorship's research activities. The expectation that the W1 professor will be involved in the schools' or the university's main research areas or participate in ongoing third-party funding networks is usually already mentioned in the call texts and is therefore also subject to review as part of the interim and final evaluation.