This is how you sell the best

The misery at German universities can be summed up in one word: Science Temporary Contract Act. Enacted almost 20 years ago under the first Merkel government, it deprives mid-level academics of secure employment prospects and reliable career planning. The law limits the employment of employees before and after their doctorate - i.e. during the so-called qualification phase - to six years each; If the twelve years are full, a temporary position at the university (regardless of where) is usually no longer possible.

If those affected do not obtain a professorship, they are highly qualified but, in doubt, unemployed. Coveted tenure-track positions are also few and far between in Germany. They are associated with the guarantee of a lifetime professorship if previously agreed goals have been achieved during a limited phase. This increases planning security and enables the position holders to become more independent in their research and university work. However, that is not the rule.

For many scientists, “social uncertainty has become the norm,” complains Andreas Keller, head of the university and research board of the Education and Science Union (GEW) in the “Blätter für deutsche und internationalpolitik”.

Under the traffic light coalition, the then Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) wanted to reform the law, but didn't get further than the draft - fortunately for the postdocs, it has to be said. She planned to shorten the time limit after completing her doctorate to four years, which would have left scientists with even less time to increase their chances of obtaining a permanent professorship.

However, things don't look much better under black and red. The new draft law from Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) recently went into its first reading. The plan is to keep the postdoc phase at six years and to introduce a minimum term of three years for initial contracts at least before the doctorate. However, the basic problem does not change, criticizes Keller: “Academic employment should, even after the doctorate, be regulated by a special law on fixed-term contracts.”

How creativity, courage and inventiveness, on which excellent science depends, should thrive under such precarious conditions has not yet been able to be answered by any of the responsible governments. When restricted in this way, the originality of thought gives way to a standardization of topics and attitudes that are most likely to promise success in the academic system. Anyone who has good ideas is unlikely to be motivated to develop them permanently in such a cosmos of lack of prospects.

Talents are also needed outside of science. But therein lies its deep tragedy. In the spirit of Bologna, the university as a whole was sacrificed to the primacy of economization and the deeper meaning of knowledge was driven out of the lecture halls. But precisely where it would be appropriate to act according to the criteria of economic competition - i.e. to make the conditions for working as attractive as possible - the idiosyncrasies of German university policy continue to exist. This is how you drive away the best – and permanently damage the educational location.