The TU Darmstadt understands tenure track professorships as an attractive and future-oriented career path for early phase researchers. At the same time, tenure track professorships offer an opportunity for departments to attract the leading minds in innovative as well as unconventional research fields.

With the help of the professorships the TU Darmstadt aims to

• establish the tenure-track career path throughout the university
• improve the predictability and transparency for early career researchers, also in the sense of the Bund-Länder-programme for tenure-track professorships
• attract more women and international researchers
• make its professorial staff more diverse

Open positions at TU Darmstadt

Principles: Process reliability, transparency, quality assurance

The guidelines for tenure track professorships at TU Darmstadt provide an individual target agreement and a mid-term review as an important point of reference during the term of the professorship. Furthermore, each assistant professorship is free to choose a mentor. The granting of tenure depends entirely on the fulfilment of personal requirements and agreed goals.

New assistant professorships with a tenure track are generally filled as W2 professorships with a six-year term. In the case of a positive tenure decision, there will usually be an acceptance to a permanent W2 professorship. After another five years, there is the possibility of obtaining a W3 professorship via an ad personam procedure.

Within the context of the so called Bund-Länder-Programm (also „Tenure-Track-Program“, TTP) for the promotion of early career researchers, the TU Darmstadt was able to acquire a total of 20 tenure-track professorships in both funding rounds. In addition to the tenure-track professorships funded by the TTP, the university departments advertise further assistant professorships with tenure track.

Tenure procedure at TU Darmstadt

Maxims: Quality assurance, transparency, process security.

Goals: Maintaining quality assurance, structuring the process; guidance; further development of the “Darmstadt Model”.

Legal basis: Article 64 HHG [Hessen Higher Education Act], Constitution of the TU Darmstadt. In all other respects, all regulations for assistant professorships at the Technische Universität Darmstadt applicable at the particular point in time will remain unaffected.