Early career researchers:
University of Hohenheim Expands Career Support [06.06.17]
Committees pass personnel development plan for early career researchers / specific offers for doctoral candidates, postdocs, and junior professors
Transparent qualification paths, support in career planning, interdisciplinary qualification for careers in and outside of universities, and special promotion of the highest performing researchers - these are the cornerstones of the University of Hohenheim’s new personnel development plan. President's Office, Senate, and University Council have unanimously passed the plan. This was preceded by a one-year planning phase that included scientists and committees.
Focusing on the person: To ensure optimal conditions for research and teaching and to make the location even more attractive, the University of Hohenheim is also prioritizing personnel development.
For this purpose, it has designed its own personnel development plan for early career researchers. It picks up already existing measures, integrates them, and further develops them - thereby offering orientation for individual personal and professional further development.
Tailored support for all career phases
With this plan, the University of Hohenheim aims to create more transparency about possible career paths for early career researchers - and also wants to inform them about the demands that go along with these paths. The young scientists are to take part in specific measures that qualify them for the job market both inside and outside of the university. Individual advising and planned development meetings are to support them in their career path decisions.
The plan also targets support for the scientific elite in particular. The university is thus following the strategic goals it set itself in its Structural and Development Plan.
“Finishing Touches” for ambitious early career researchers
The heart of the personnel development plan is the new talent management program “Feinschliff” (Finishing Touches). “The offer is directed at especially high-performing and ambitious early career researchers who completed their doctorates not more than two years ago,” explained Julia Kettelhack, the Director of the University of Hohenheim’s Personnel and Organizational Development Unit. “It thereby supports the young elite.”
Those who want to participate in the program need to show proof of not only outstanding subject-area performance but they also have to go through a potentials analysis. “We want to make sure that we are really reaching our high-potentials with Feinschliff and working on their strengths,” Kettelhack clarified.
Coaching sessions, seminars, fireplace evenings, and network activities are all part of the program. It conveys key qualifications and develops skills for management tasks.
Hohenheim competence model for post-doctoral candidates
For the group of postdocs, the University of Hohenheim has developed a so-called competence model: It outlines the skills, qualities, and knowledge that are necessary for a postdoc in Hohenheim.
“The expansion of subject-area competence in the postdoc phase is of key importance,” emphasized Kettelhack. “That is the task of the faculties. But during this time it is also important that the scientists strengthen their interdisciplinary skills. That makes it easier for them to enter the job market outside of academia.”
Gaining Momentum assists junior professors
In 2012, the University established its first junior professorships - including tenure track. “That means that the junior professors have the perspective of being able to stay: After a positive evaluation at the end of their six-year qualification phase, they can be appointed to a tenured professorship,” explained Kettelhack.
“Stark in Fahrt” (Gaining Momentum) is the name of the program that is assisting the junior professors during this phase: “Coaching sessions and mentoring programs support them in developing their subject-area and interdisciplinary skills. And regular discussions with the Dean and Dean of Studies are to ensure that this development and evaluation process proceeds systematically and successfully.”
In the future, the University of Hohenheim only wants to offer junior professorships with tenure track. Currently, it is planning to send out calls for applications for five additional tenure track professorships that are to strengthen the university-wide focus “Bioeconomy.”
Interdisciplinary skills contribute to appointment process
One new aspect of the plan is to carry out a potentials analysis during the appointment process for junior professors in the future in order to ensure the highest quality possible. Kettelhack emphasizes that “success during a junior professorship is not only determined by expertise in research and teaching but also by social and leadership skills - that is why these should play a role in the selection procedure.”
These evaluation criteria later also go into the evaluation of the junior professors.
More information
https://www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/personnel-development-scientific-area
https://www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/strategy-research#jfmulticontent_c266487-10
Text: Elsner
Contact for press:
Julia Kettelhack, Director of the Personnel and Organizational Development Unit at the University of Hohenheim,
T +49 (0)711 459 22862, E julia.kettelhack@verwaltung.uni-hohenheim.de
