Transparency & Fairness
Appointment committees should consider the entire range of academic activities. Academic activities of professors include the following areas:
- Research
- Teaching
- Leadership (e.g. mentoring, organisational and management skills, strategic thinking)
- Service to the field (e.g. at the research institution or in professional societies, editorial activities) and
- Societal impact (e.g. science communication, citizen science, transfer into practice).
Transparency & Fairness
Qualitative and quantitative assessment criteria are incorporated into the overall assessment in a differentiated and reflected manner. This excludes the inappropriate use of superficial indicators (e.g. the journal impact factor or the name of the journal, simply counting publications). The evaluation follows a multidimensional approach both between and within the relevant areas. The ‘academic age’ and any special life circumstances are also taken into account.
Multidimensional Valuation Approach
1. The existence of theoretically coherent research programmes
2. The consideration of the principles of good scientific practice, including research transparency and reproducibility
3. Innovation; the combination of theory and practice and different, also interdisciplinary fields of research
4. Development and synthesis of methods and theory.
In addition to publications in journal format, other outputs must also be taken into account. These may include (depending on the subject area and job advertisement), for example, book publications, publications in proceedings of high-ranking conferences, development of software and instruments or the provision of larger data sets.
In the area of teaching, for example, the scope and breadth of previous teaching experience, available teaching evaluations, the development of new teaching formats and a teaching statement requested as part of the application documents can be taken into account.
From the other relevant areas, aspects such as editorships, contributions to the training of young researchers, leading roles in relevant professional societies and conferences or the communication of research findings to the general public (e.g. in high-profile events, lectures, interviews) can play a role.
The executive management of the department and the executive board discuss in advance the criteria particularly relevant for the specific professorship position and express these both in the application for (re)assignment of the professorship and in the job advertisement; the appointment committee specifies, operationalizes, and systematically weighs these criteria and documents this process.
responsible for the content of this page: Stefanie Surd-Büchele