Strategic activity fields
Your research profile is one of the most important factors in your scientific career. The choice of research topic is shaped by your interests, but the embedding of your position in larger research projects and the current societal context can also help determine which topics are currently being researched. Nevertheless, you can shape some aspects of your research profile at an early stage.
In some disciplines, a reorientation in terms of content after the doctorate is desirable, since a broad range of content and methods is required for an appointment to a professorship.
Your scientific independence can also be of great importance. This can be demonstrated, for example, by publications for which you are the sole author.
Experienced scientists from your field can give you information about the importance of these factors in your discipline. You also have the possibility to keep an eye on the potentially available professorships in your field and their respective denominations and to align the topic of your habilitation or habilitation-equivalent achievements with them.
You will also be able to monitor your own subject discourse, developments in the strategic orientation of universities, impulses from science policy, and developments in the research landscape as a whole. This will enable you to assess which research topics in your discipline are relevant and sustainable for the professional community, but also for funding institutions or, if applicable, industry.
In our program you will find courses on the strategic design of your research profile - if you have any further questions or need further training or external coaching, please do not hesitate to contact us.
In Germany, qualification for a university professorship often still takes the form of a habilitation. In its classical form, this involves the preparation of a habilitation thesis and an examination procedure to determine the candidate's ability to teach in a scientific subject. Depending on the subject, however, it can also be achieved cumulatively, i.e. by publishing several relevant articles in specialist journals. The details are regulated in the habilitation regulations of the respective department ( » Habilitation Regulations at JLU ).
There is no uniform regulation on what can be understood as habilitation-equivalent achievement. Each university and the disciplines represented there determine this individually in the habilitation regulations.
For example, work that has been produced within the framework of an own research group can be considered equivalent. In some disciplines, for example, successful third-party funding for a junior research group can replace a habilitation.
A junior professorship is also often a way to demonstrate the "additional scientific achievements".
Your decisions on the orientation of your research profile may be helpful for the choice of your habilitation topic or comparable scientific achievements.
When applying for a professorship, but also for other opportunities such as third-party funding applications, you provide evidence of your research performance in the form of a publication list, among other things. With your publications you show your professional and methodological expertise, but also your scientific independence and the breadth of your research profile.
Publication strategies differ greatly between disciplines. If you are unsure about your publication strategy, you can clarify with more experienced scientists from your discipline which publications in your subject are particularly profitable for your scientific career.
We also offer regular workshops on publication strategies. If there is currently no course on offer, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Third-party funding often plays an important role in the assessment of scientific performance. What is judged as adequate or outstanding third-party funding depends strongly on the respective subject context or research area. The nationwide averages in the respective subject area are usually used as a benchmark.
For universities, too, the third-party funds raised can be important when filling professorships, since, due to the performance-based allocation of funds, the amount of a university's basic funding also depends on how much third-party funding is raised by its staff.
We have compiled some information on this topic in the Funding section. We also offer you ongoing opportunities to learn more about third-party funding applications and funding formats.
In professorship announcements as well as in research funding, knowledge and technology transfer and science communication are more and more named as evaluation criteria. For applicants, this means that they should be aware of the results that their research funds will generate for society and how these can be communicated to the public.
Possibilities for communicating scientific content to a non-scientific audience include lectures, discussion events, or contributions to the media (radio, newspapers, television) that are aimed at a broader audience. At JLU, so-called science slams are also enjoying a certain popularity, in which research results are passed on in an appealing manner to an audience outside the field.
At JLU, the topic of transfer is located in the staff department Knowledge and Technology Transfer . Here you can obtain information on contract research and service projects, patents, licenses and contacts with various partners from business and industry. Interested parties from all departments are advised by the Entrepreneurship Cluster Mittelhessen on all topics related to spin-offs. TransMIT Gesellschaft für Technologietransfer mbH also plays a central role in knowledge and technology transfer at JLU. TransMIT is dedicated to the marketing of innovative technologies and services from the three Central Hessian universities (JLU, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen, THM).
Today, science is widely international. Mobility and internationality contribute to academic success in many subjects. In appointment committees and for many third-party funding programmes, international research experience has often a high priority; this can be evidenced by stays abroad, embedding in international research networks, publications in international journals or similar.
You can find out in your academic environment how internationality is weighted, whether a stay abroad is recommended, where such a stay could take place, and what period of time seems reasonable for working on a (sub-)research project. A teaching stay abroad can also be used to build up an international network or to prepare a research project.
Under Research & Teaching Worldwide and in the Funding section, we have compiled some information on funding stays abroad.
Presentations at specialist conferences, colloquia or similar occasions are worthwhile for you on your academic career path in several aspects.
On the one hand, many appointment committees regard presentations at renowned conferences as a quality mark of your academic performance. In addition, your audience can give you valuable feedback on your research work. At the same time, you improve your scientific visibility by presenting yourself to the professional community. This generally also expands your scientific network and makes further invitations to conferences or guest lectures more likely.
As a panel organiser, moderator or commentator, you will also have the opportunity to come into contact with other scientists.
We support conference travel for postdocs through the PCMO's Postdoc Fund - feel free to apply!
Since higher education institutions have the right of self-administration by law, there are a large number of committees throughout the organisational structure, starting with the professorship, the institute, the department and the higher education institution as a whole. Accordingly, most university teachers spend a considerable amount of their working time on committee work.
You can already gain your first committee experience in the postdoc phase. Participation in university self-administration gives you the opportunity to gain deeper insights into the functioning of a university as well as important knowledge for your further career path. You may be able to become a member of an appointment committee as a representative of your status group, which in turn will give you valuable experience for your own appointment procedure.
Management and administrative tasks include project coordination, reporting and evaluation, event organisation, budget planning and similar. They play a central role in the day-to-day life of a professorship, but performance in this area is often weighted less heavily when professorships are filled.
For junior researchers, it is usually easy to gain experience in this area due to the abundance of tasks - especially if you lead your own junior research group.
We offer you numerous workshops with which you can further professionalise your working methods and use your resources as efficiently as possible.
Professors supervise and examine young academics, for example in the context of doctorates. Usually postdocs can only gain limited prior experience here because they are not formally allowed to supervise dissertations.
Teaching , as the core task of a professorship, includes not only holding courses but also conducting examinations, advising students and supervising theses. Pedagogical aptitude is therefore a prerequisite for appointment to a professorship and is documented by a teaching portfolio.
To ensure that you are well equipped for an application on a professorship, you can compile a teaching portfolio in the postdoc phase with different teaching contents and formats, in which you, for example, take up your research topic in teaching.
In our programme you will find ongoing courses and exchange formats on university teaching. You can also make use of the teaching evaluation service at JLU and include your course evaluations in your teaching portfolio. Your teaching sample also plays an important role in the assessment of your teaching competence in the appointment procedure. You can also receive advice on university didactics with regard to your teaching portfolio. In addition, an in-depth qualification programme including a certificate programm is available to you, which you can use to expand your teaching competence.
A well-functioning network can contribute to a successful academic career. Being known in the scientific community and having good relationships with researchers at home and abroad can help you to initiate research collaborations and increase the likelihood of being invited to conferences, lectures or guest visits. Visible and profile-building research collaborations can increase your attractiveness for universities.
International contacts and collaborations can underline the recognition of one's own scientific achievements by renowned institutions and researchers in selection procedures. Participation in larger research collaborations can be an indicator of competence in research management.
Experienced researchers in your field usually already have a well-functioning network that you can use to build your own network, as can conferences.
Through our PCMO mentoring programs , you can get in touch with experienced scientists. We also offer courses to help you network - from self-presentation to presenting scientific content in English. If you have any further training needs, please let us know in person.
Leadership experience can be an advantage when applying for a professorship, but if it cannot be proven, this is usually no exclusion criterion.
Leadership and HR responsibility can be documented through leadership functions in research projects or through leading junior research groups . Supervision of students and - where possible - of doctoral candidates as well as already completed qualifying theses supervised by you can also be cited.
Human Resources Development offers you in-depth further training in this area as part of the management development programme and the JLU's continuing education and training programme . If you have discipline-specific needs as a postdoc without formal HR responsibility, for example "Leading in the lab", you can find corresponding courses in our offer.
In addition to publications and third-party funding, scientific prizes or awards are considered an important indicator of your scientific performance.
Prizes and awards can have a positive effect on your visibility in the scientific community and on your assessment in future awards or in appointment procedures. If the award is associated with prize money, your personal third-party funding balance will also improve.
We have compiled information on this topic in the section Funding > Prizes and Awards .