Junior professorships (assistant professorships) with tenure track will be introduced as a key element of scientific careers at Heidelberg University of Education. In the program's context, six junior professorships with tenure track will be established.
To implement the new career path and to fulfill all formal requirements of the program, statutes for quality assurance for junior professorships with tenure track have been passed by the University Senate. Along with the statutes for the evaluation of junior professorships, the guidelines for appointment procedures and the statutes for extensions of civil services on time, structures, processes and quality standards for tenure track professorships have been set.
Junior professors with tenure track can profit from numerous measures in the field of professional development. As members of the University's Graduate School, they have access to many services (e.g., financial support and further training workshops). Furthermore, they can participate in the Graduate School's mentoring system.
To ensure sustainability in a systematic manner, junior professor staffing parallel to a full professor staffing before retirement, a full professor buffer professorship, a flexible transitional funding, and understaffing of a full professor with a junior professor for personnel recruitment will be established. Therefore, tenure track professorships can be implemented without any risk, and extensions (leave of absence, birth or adoption of a child; postponement of the connected full professor's retirement) are also covered by this means.