How professors are hired

particularly in Germany

In a nutshell: This is a long elaborate process that is well established and overall works just fine.

The position itself and the beginnings

First, you need a position. This can either be when somebody else retires, or when a new position is being framed (which is less often the case). The usual case is that you have a clear demand in research and teaching, and a respective position is being framed based on this. This is done by the institute, the faculty, and the presidential floor. It is then being discussed among the faculty board, and ideally approved.

All the while, a commission is being formed which represents all levels of people at a University, such as professors, Postdocs, technical or administrative personal, students, and external members. In addition you have the dean, a vice president, the head of the office of the Faculty, an equal opportunity person and someone from the office that organizes the process of hiring new professors (writing protocols, sending invitations, organizing meetings). This position is written out, usually in common newspapers and scientific forums. People then can apply for it. In an ideal case, you get dozens of applications.

Time frame

The whole process takes 8-16 months, yet is much faster in other countries. About a dozen people focus on the whole thing for a total of 4-5 days, plus reading all the applications and evaluating all the pros and cons. Dozens of other people from the different boards are also involved to check and safeguard the whole process. Taken together, this is a really elaborate process that takes a long time and a lot of effort, and all universities try to win the most promising candidates for their professorships. After all, these are people who have a prestigious position and often work at the University for life. Hence you want to hire the most innovative researchers and teachers. People not familiar with the complexity of this process often underestimate the norms and regulations of the process, which we hope to clarify a bit here.

What an appointment commission does

In short, the commission calling or appointing a person for the professorship meets up four times at least.

First, the commission meets and discusses the criteria that are used to evaluate applicants. In a second meeting, all applications are being discussed. In preparation, all commission members get an excel sheet to fill out along their application screening. The list includes all previously decided criteria from the first meeting. This can be a rather long process, both screening all applications and the commission session itself (a meeting might take some hours). Out of this, a so called long list is being selected. These best 6-10 candidates are being invited to present themselves in person. This is done over a time span of usually 2 days, and applicants present their **research and teaching** and are **interviewed** afterwards. The research presentation and the short lecture sample are open to all members of the university. The interview however is confidential. Especially the student representatives in the committee are asked to promote this session and invite colleagues to join the teaching sample so that there is a broad perspective on the respective applicant’s fit to the professorship’s teaching expectations. The personal presentations are discussed directly afterwards, while always keeping the hard-fact applications in mind that were handed-in before the commission saw and “experience” the applicants.

Out of the previous long list of applicants, a shorter list is being formed which also includes a ranking. Such a short ranked list ideally contains 3 people who could fill the position. The Faculty board and the Senate discuss and ideally approve this. Finally, the Board of Trustees gives its final approval, and the president starts negotiations with the person on top of the list.

If all goes well, the first applicant is hired, which is usually the case - otherwise you go down the list of well suited applicants.

Outlook

Many details can be discussed, such as the need for additional (administrative) positions to reduce any limitation-based competition, unhelpful stress during the process, monetary issues (e.g. professorship payment) and much more. There will also most probably be a tension between interests: students will focus on the didactics and teaching skills whereas external researchers might focus on the research concept and innovative potentials, hopefully yet not always beyond their focus. The commission heads and faculty representatives will however most probably focus on who has most experience with competitive third party funding and academic administration. These aspects do not have to but sometimes do clash - so that e.g. the most convincing applicant in teaching may have a rather weak publication track or is quite young, academically speaking, or lacks big third party funded research projects. Hence, the discussions about ranking the final list of professors can be very intense and interesting.

Especially questions of diversity and equal opportunities are relevant when joining discussions in a commission. Currently, there is still an absolute underrepresentation of non-male professors and also a relative one, since at student level, over 50% of students are read as female at Leuphana. Another problematic dynamic is the Gender-Pay-Gap. In the highest of the three professorship levels (ranging from W1- W3) there is a clear gap. This may be due to male professors being more empowered and competitive and applying more often to professorship calls and being on hiring lists more often. Being called by another university leads to a negotiation at the current university a professor is hired at. The more you apply to others and are called, the more negotiations you have and so your payment, rooms or resources can increase.

The author of this entry is Henrik von Wehrden and Linda von Heydebreck.