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I am currently a PostDoc in Germany, recently finished my PhD. I come originally from Italy where I pursued my undergraduate degree, and have completed my master's and PhD in Germany (in different universities).

The total time I have spent working as a research assistant both before & during my PhD and current PostDoc are 5.5 years.

I just got informed that in several states in Germany (like BW) a requirement for qualifying for a junior professorship is having been employed as a research assistant for less than 6 years.

I wanted to ask whether that holds for all states/announced junior professorships.

And a second part (targeting more senior professionals with this part) whether you would suggest me to end my current PostDoc just before the 6 year mark and move abroad in order to be able to qualify for a W1 position in the future.

Do you consider it necessary for having chances to get a permanent W2/3 position in Germany, or would the usual PostDoc route also work through a group leader position? Or do research group leader positions have similar requirements?

Christine
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    My understanding of the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz is that you may have a time-limited position for six years between graduating and finishing a Ph.D., plus six years after the Ph.D., and any time you did not use up in getting the Ph.D. is available afterwards. So it seems like you still have 6+6-5.5=6.5 years left. I am not a lawyer, so don't trust me on this, but you may want to get some more information than from random internet strangers. The Hochschulverband may be helpful. – Stephan Kolassa Jun 23 '23 at 04:12
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    Thank you for the links! I understand that this 6 year limit is kinda related to the Wiss.Gesetz. My question was whether also alternative routes to a permanent position have similar requirements, and after finishing a PostDoc having worked in total 7 years employed by the University you are more or less disqualified for a permanent position because all routes leading to them would have the 6 year requirement. Do also group leader positions have this 6 year limit? – Christine Jun 23 '23 at 08:57
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    @StephanKolassa: I think you might be confusing two things in your comment: the hiring of juniorprofessors is not affected by the Wissenschaftszeitvertraggesetz since §1(1) states that the law does not apply to the hiring of "Hochschulelehrer"; see also point 7 here. The issue the OP refers to is something different: various "Landeshochschulgesetze" include a rule that a juniorprofessor can't be hired if, roughly speaking, more than six years have passed since the beginning of their PhD. [...] – Jochen Glueck Jun 23 '23 at 09:17
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    [...] See for instance §51(3) in the Landeshochschulgesetz Baden-Württemberg. – Jochen Glueck Jun 23 '23 at 09:50
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    @JochenGlueck Yes exactly that's what I meant! It says "Sofern vor oder nach der Promotion eine Beschäftigung als Akademische Mitarbeiterin oder Akademischer Mitarbeiter erfolgt ist, sollen Promotions- und Beschäftigungsphase zusammen nicht mehr als sechs Jahre, im Bereich der Medizin nicht mehr als neun Jahre betragen haben.", i.e., the total length of employment as research assistant should be less than 6 years before starting the Junior professorship. – Christine Jun 25 '23 at 14:39
  • @Christine No this does not apply for all Germany – can't stop me now Jul 17 '23 at 00:14

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No, this (outright ridiculous) 6 years rule does not exist in all federal states in Germany (although it exists, unfortunately, in many of them). For instance, North Rhine-Westphalia does not have this rule (link to the Landeshochschulgesetz NRW).

Regarding your second question, it might (or might not) depend a bit on the subject. In many fields it is certainly possible in Germany to become professor without being a juniorprofessor first.

Jochen Glueck
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  • Why is it "ridiculous"? Isn't it the idea of junior professorships to allow better and safer career paths for young scientists? – J Fabian Meier Jun 23 '23 at 09:17
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    @JFabianMeier: Yes, I agree that's the idea of juniorprofessorships. The problem is that this specific rule achieves precisely the contrary: it turns hiring for juniorprofessorships into a completely unpredictable lottery (even much for than academic hiring already is anyway). For instance, in my field (math) a realistic time frame for a PhD is 3.5 to 4 years. Afterwards you'll typically take a postdoc position. In this position, getting at least some work done, written down, and possibly published, will easily take another 1.5 years. – Jochen Glueck Jun 23 '23 at 09:41
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    So the time frame during which one can effectively apply for juniorprofessorships is about 1 year long or so. One year is, compared to the speed of academia in mathematics, so extremely short that this turns the hiring of juniorprofessors into an extremely random endeavour. – Jochen Glueck Jun 23 '23 at 09:42
  • I have a PhD in pure maths myself. I think it would be reasonable to hire Junior Professors based on their PhD thesis and possible publications during the PhD only. Surely, one might be mistaken about some candidate, but a Junior Professorship is not a life time position. I mean, with the current career path, you loose a lot of people on the way who are good mathematicians, but are well over 30 and don't want one year contracts any more. – J Fabian Meier Jun 23 '23 at 14:48