Formal aspece of adademic careers (Dorothea-Schlözer-Mentoringprogramm/Stabsstelle Zukunftskonzept)

Trainer: Dr. Reiner Mansch (Director Institutional Strategy Office) and Julie Harris (Administration Service Point)
Date: 12 June 2012, 14.00-17.00 Uhr
Venue: Institutional Strategy Office, Von-Siebold-Str. 4, seminar room 1.310, 1st floor)
Target group: Mentees of the mentoring program and other interested PhDs and Postdocs
Language: English/German (as requested)

Registration: Dr. Manuela Kaiser-Belz, Institutional Strategy Office, e-mail: manuela.kaiser-belz@uni-goettingen.de

Attention!: this workshop ist already booked out!

Training contents:
For those pursuing an academic career path, it is important to develop a general understanding of certain legal and formal regulations that influence employment with universities (e.g. Lower Saxony Higher Education Act (NHG), academic fixed-term contract laws (WissZeitVG), and internal university regulations). Together Dr. Mansch and Julie Harris will be drawing on their own experience of hiring junior researchers in the Excellence Initiative to discuss formal aspects of employment in an academic environment. Some of the relevant topics and overriding issues include:
- What are typical positions of further qualification for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in Germany? (e.g. concerning periods of employment, number of hours per week, salary)
- What types of advertisements are appealing to doctoral or postdoctoral candidates and which are more risky from a career point-of-view?
- What are some of the formal aspects of interviewing? What are perceived as difficulties from the employer’s perspective and from the applicant’s perspective?
- When and what are valid reasons for issuing fixed term contracts?
- Which positions represent qualification periods according to academic fixed-term contract laws and which do not?
- How are maternity leave, parental leave, and part-time employment provided for under academic fixed-term contract laws?
- What criteria play a role in hiring for academic positions?
- How are salaries determined for academic positions? (labor contract laws?…)
- And any additional questions that participants may have!