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Universities of teacher education: Successful exchange for young scientists!
The tenure-track network meeting at PH Gmünd promotes top scientists. Over 70 participants discussed future strategies.
Universities of teacher education: Successful exchange for young scientists!
On April 4, 2025, a network meeting took place at the Ludwigsburg University of Education that focused on the tenure track system. This system aims to attract excellent scientists from home and abroad to the German science system and to retain them in the long term PH Schwäbisch Gmünd reported. Over 70 participants from 48 universities nationwide were present to exchange experiences and perspectives.
A central topic of the meeting was the importance of universities of teacher education in the tenure-track system. Dr. Jessica Wilzek from PH Schwäbisch Gmünd emphasized that the long-term retention of scientific talent through tenure track is crucial. It was also emphasized how important collaboration between different types of universities is in order to further develop the system. Dr. Silvana Burke and André Stiegler from the coordination team pointed out the need for exchange between colleges and universities.
Importance and challenges of the tenure track program
The tenure track program was launched by the federal and state governments in 2016 to promote our young scientists. The focus is on establishing predictable academic careers. To date, 971 tenure-track professorships have been filled at 75 universities, which corresponds to 97% of the target of 1,000 additional professorships, explained Tenure track.
One of the main motivations for the program is to create reliable career prospects for young scientists. After a probationary period of a maximum of six years, they can move on to a lifelong professorship. This makes the career path to a professorship more transparent, as it depends on the tenure evaluation. By July 1, 2023, 34,915 applications had already been registered, with a third of the applications coming from women.
Interactive workshops and perspectives
Interactive workshops were also offered as part of the network meeting. The focus was on topics such as open ranking announcements, consulting and mentoring methods as well as evaluation criteria. The keynote speech by Dr. Frauke Peter from the DZHW with the title “Tenure Track Professorship Made in Germany – Fact Check – Questions – Discussion” was a highlight in terms of content. She offered a comprehensive overview of the challenges and perspectives of the tenure track career path.
An important result of the program is that by 2022, almost half of the tenure-track professorships will have been awarded to women, while the proportion of women in all professorships in Germany was only 28%. The program covers a total period of 15 years, during which up to 1 billion euros will be made available for funding to bring about a cultural change at German universities, such as Federal Ministry of Education and Research summarizes.