Kiel University

As Schleswig-Holstein's only comprehensive university, Kiel University has a particular responsibility to increase the transparency of the career perspectives for its young researchers and thereby enable open career paths that can be planned individually. Until 2030 Kiel University plans to implement the Tenure-Track Professorship (TTP) on a sustainable basis.

Due to its Responsive Governance (e.g. the Standing Committee on Research), Kiel University ensures that TTPs are incorporated into the University’s structural development. Appointment strategy meetings provide enough flexibility to be able to choose between a TTP or a different appointment model in recognition of the respective discipline’s culture and the applicant situation. Kiel University will use TTPs to realign disciplines and specifically recruit young international researchers for professorships, by conducting symposia to find suitable candidates. In connection with equal opportunity measures and actions for a family-friendly working environment, TTPs will enable more female researchers to obtain a professorship at Kiel University.

The appointment and evaluation procedures and criteria are clearly regulated and easily accessible. The transparency of potential career paths both within and outside Kiel University will be considerably improved through a mixture of practical and institutional measures such as pilot projects for alternative personnel structures, an entrepreneurship certificate programme or the establishment of a Postdoc Centre. Kiel University’s personnel development concept focuses on individual career planning: career checks draw attention to transitional situations, such as the one between a degree and a doctoral degree, in which a network of internal advisors offers support in making the right career decisions.