An assistant professorship with tenure track addresses particularly promising young academics in an early career phase. After a successful tenure track, an immediate transition to a permanent professorship (= tenure) is envisaged.

At TU Darmstadt, assistant professorships with tenure track are to become a standard path to a professorship alongside the traditional appointment: in 2030, TU Darmstadt aims to recruit around half of its professors via a W2 assistant professorship with tenure track.

By appointing assistant professors, TU Darmstadt aims to

• establish the tenure-track career path across the entire university
• further increase predictability and transparency for early career researchers – also in line with the Bund-Länder-Programm for the promotion of early career researchers
• attract more women and more international academics
• make its professorship more diverse in the long term

Open positions at TU Darmstadt

Principles: Reliable procedures, transparency, quality control

Based on its experience to date, 2024 TU Darmstadt has further developed its statutes for assistant professorships with and without tenure track. This provides for an agreement on objectives (“Zielvereinbarung”) with targets in the three performance dimensions of research, teaching and leadership. Regular feedback meetings are important points of orientation for tenure tracks. The granting of tenure depends on the criteria formulated in paragraph 5 of the statutes for assistant professorships with and without tenure track (see link below). Upon request, each assistant professor can be assigned a mentor from another department. (opens in new tab)

New assistant professorships with tenure track are generally appointed as W2 professorships with a six-year term. In the event of a positive tenure decision, the assistant professor is appointed to a permanent professorship. Determining the value of the permanent professorship (W2 / W3) is part of the approval process.

The new statutes for assistant professorships with and without tenure track came into force on 4 April 2024.

Statutes for assistant professorships with and without tenure track (English) (opens in new tab)

Satzung Assistenzprofessuren mit und ohne Tenure-Track (German) (opens in new tab)