General conditions

Legal basis: Sections 63 and 66 BayHIG

FAU appointment guidelines

Tenure Track statutes

After achieving a doctoral degree, a W1 professorship represents the next possible stage of your academic career. It is designed to enable you to acquire the qualifications required for an appointment as a full university professor.

As a W1 professor, you will act as a university lecturer and will be a full member of the academic personnel of the university. Your independent research and teaching activities will be determined by this relationship and you will have the right to supervise doctoral candidates and to examine students.

W1 professors are generally employed as public servants (Beamte) for a fixed-term and may only use the title of ‘professor’ during their appointment.

Your official duties as a W1 professor will include gaining additional qualifications to prepare for your appointment to a full professorship by undertaking academic- research- and teaching-related tasks.

You will not be authorised to sit on appointments committees or act in professor evaluation proceedings.

Would you like to apply for a professorship? Like all other professorships, available W1 professorships are publicly advertised, usually internationally.

W1 professorships are usually based on a two-phase employment contract that generally extends for six years; the appointment is made for a period of three years during the first phase.

At the end of your W1 phase, your work as a university lecturer in this period will be subjected to an intermediate evaluation. Your performance will be assessed; if the result is positive, your contract will be extended to cover the total period of eight years as will your temporary status as a public servant (Beamte) if you are employed on these terms. The assessment procedure and measures for determining the quality of your performance are specified in the Tenure Track Regulations. In the event of a negative intermediate evaluation, an additional bridging period of one year may be granted assuming you agree to this.

The university may also combine the W1 professorship with a tenure track option, although at FAU the tenure track option does not guarantee a tenured professorship.

This tenure evaluation is usually only undertaken following a positive intermediate evaluation (see the Tenure Track Regulations).

Are you applying for a W1 professorship at FAU as an international applicant? We have compiled some information to assist you in understanding the professorship and career path systems in Germany and to familiarise you with appointment procedure practices in this country: What is a professorship? Career paths at FAU.

As a W1 professor, you will receive initial start-up funding from FAU.

Before your appointment, the Dean will set out a target agreement with you that contains the framework for the entire duration of your professorship. The purpose of the agreement is to establish the expectations and standards to be met during the evaluation with quantifiable evaluation criteria and optionally a time schedule. The criteria depend on whether your W1 professorship is linked to a tenure track. This target agreement forms the basis for your interim evaluation, and in the case of a tenure track, a modified version of the agreement is the basis for the tenure evaluation.

As a W1 professor, you will receive support from a mentor who is not from your subject. Your mentor will support you with fulfilling the requirements of the target agreement and guide and advise you on preparing for your future academic role.

Once you have undergone the intermediate evaluation, you will receive detailed feedback about your performance thus far during the course of a personal interview. You will also be issued with a certificate showing the decision of the faculty council on whether or not to grant you a postdoctoral lecturing qualification.

You will find further information and support material under Service centres.