Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act Germany

An FAQ on the “WissZeitVG”

Many are familiar with the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act primarily because of the so-called 12-year rule (Section 2 Paragraph 1 – English PDF version of the law can be read here). The concept behind the rule is that each phase in academic qualification should take no longer than six years.

• Without a completed doctorate, academics are allowed to hold an academic position for six years – but are expected to have completed their dissertation by the end of that period.
• Academics who have completed their doctorates are allowed to be employed in an academic position for an additional six years during the postdoc phase.

Those two provisions make up the 12-year rule. These limitations, however, only apply to qualification positions, as discussed above. It is important to note that those academics who do not use up the full six years allotted for academic positions by the time they complete their doctorates may add the remaining time to the postdoc phase.

The 12-year rule pertains to the maximum allowable time limitations. Public and state-recognised higher education institutions and research institutions are not allowed to award fixed-term contracts to academic and artistic staff that exceed this length without a specific reason. As a rule, though, academic contracts tend to be far shorter than that. As such, the 12-year rule applies to the sum of the contracts held during each phase.

The only exception is in the field of medicine. As outlined in Section 2 Paragraph 2 of the law, fixed-term contracts of up to nine years are allowed in the postdoc phase. That means the 12-year rule becomes a 15-year rule for students of medicine.

Because the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act applies explicitly to academic staff holding qualification positions, it was long unclear whether teaching or research-coordination positions could also be included in the fixed-term period. Such occupations raise the question as to whether they contribute to advanced academic credentials.

Since a 2011 ruling by the Federal Labour Court, however, it has been clear that the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act does not apply to “non-academic personnel at universities.” That includes, for example:

• Teachers for specific tasks, such as language teachers
• Lecturers
• Staff members who are primarily focused on teaching and are not engaged in research

Such positions are governed by the Part-Time and Limited Term Employment Act (TzBfG). The Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act also does not apply to university teachers and junior professors at state universities, since their contracts may be limited in accordance with the Part-Time and Limited Term Employment Act.

Fixed-term positions as student assistants during one’s studies do not count towards the fixed-term total outlined by the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act. However, fixed-term research assistant positions taken after completion of a degree do count towards the fixed-term total. Important: The 2016 reform to the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act limits student assistant positions to a maximum of six years.

Fixed-term, externally (third-party) funded positions also apply to the 12-year total. Section 2 Paragraph 3 of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act stipulates that all fixed-term contracts at public and state-recognised universities and research institutions with more than a quarter of regular working hours must be considered. 

Once the maximum fixed-term limit of 12 years (or 15 for those in medicine) has been reached, however, externally funded positions may be treated differently if the following conditions are met: 

• the position is primarily funded externally;
• the funding in question was provided for a specific project and a specific length of time;
• the staff member in question was primarily hired for this specific project.

In such cases, fixed-term contracts beyond the 12-year (or 15-year) cumulative total are permissible.

The Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act is accommodating to academics who have children under the age of 18. Two years are added on per child to the fixed-term contract total. If both parents are academics, the total increases for each of them.

Periods of time that academics are not working due to maternity or parental leave are not considered towards the total at all. For example, should an expecting mother who has worked as a research assistant for two years take maternity leave, she can still remain at her job for four years once she returns plus the additional two years for having a child under the age of 18.

But be careful: That only means that the legal fixed-term total is pushed back. The actual contract is not automatically extended. Some institutions, however, are willing to accommodate their employees on this point and extend the contracts for a certain period.

Because many universities and research institutions take advantage of the possibilities granted them by the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act and generally only sign employees to fixed-term contracts, many of those working in the sector simply accept such contractual limits. But in cases where doubts begin to creep in about the legality of the fixed term, many initiate legal action in an attempt to force their employer to convert the contract to permanent employment status. 

Such lawsuits are usually only successful when the fixed-term contract was, in fact, illegal. Proving that an employer was aware that the fixed-term contract was illegal at the time it was signed, however, usually requires significant effort and time. In addition, not all lawyers are familiar with the intricacies of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act and the complex precedents that courts have established when it comes to academic contracts. Because each fixed-term contract also comes with its own specific conditions, each lawsuit aimed at eliminating the fixed term must be approached as a unique case. As such, those pursuing this route in the hopes of converting their fixed-term contract to permanent employment should be aware that they will need plenty of patience. 

In March 2016, a hotly debated reform to the act came into force, aimed at combatting the widespread practice of signing employees to short fixed-term contracts and the use of one fixed-term contract after the other (chain contracts). Since then, the act has held that the duration of fixed-term contracts for “qualification positions” must be appropriate for the qualification – such as a doctorate or a habilitation (the qualification beyond a doctorate frequently required in Germany for university professors) – being sought. The reform, however, does not define what an “appropriate duration” actually is, nor does it define what exactly falls under the category of academic or artistic qualification. The 2016 reform is more precise when it comes to externally funded positions. For such positions, the term of the contract must match the length of the research project in question.

However, given that there are too few positions available for those wishing to earn their habilitation and because fixed-term contracts remain standard in the academic world, the currently applicable 12-year rule results in a number of would-be academics having no choice but to abandon their careers in academia. In situations where the 12-year (or 15-year) total for fixed-term contracts has been reached and no additional fixed-term contract may be accepted, the only possibility left to academics is a fixed-term contract with an externally funded project, in accordance with Section 2 of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act.

Ever since it was introduced in 2007, the benefits and impacts of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act have frequently been up for debate. Critics were quick to note that fixed-term contracts would lead to job insecurity for academics. The initial version of the law made no mention of the length of fixed-term contracts – and at the time, contract lengths of one year or even less were by no means out of the ordinary. That situation led to the desired rotation – so that as many young academics as possible have an opportunity to amass the necessary qualifications for advancement – but for the young academics themselves, it translated to frequent moves and a lack of career stability, making long-term financial and family planning virtually impossible.

In response to the criticism, the language in the act pertaining to the length of fixed-term contracts was adjusted in a 2016 reform. An evaluation of the 2016 reform was planned for 2020, and the final report was submitted to the German Ministry of Education and Research in May 2022.

According to the report, the 2016 reform of the act led to a continual increase in the average length of contracts received by academics. However, the average length of 20 months achieved in 2018-2019 sank by 2.7 months with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The evaluation found that at universities and at universities of applied sciences, more contracts with three-year terms had been signed and the share of short-term contracts had dropped. Nevertheless, every third contract at institutions of higher learning is still fixed at less than 12 months.

A survey of 6,000 academics holding so-called “qualification positions” – posts designed to ensure that they can collect the credentials they need to advance – found that 50 percent are in positions in which the contract length is shorter than the time they need to obtain the necessary qualifications. In fact, the survey found only those contracts for positions attached to externally funded projects are largely consistent with the duration of the project.

On Reformation Day in 2020, the research assistants Amrei Bahr, Kristin Eichhorn and Sebastian Kubon posted a call on Twitter (under the hashtag #95WissZeitVG) for academics to share their experiences with fixed-term contracts in academia. The responses resulted in “95 Theses against the WissZeitVG,” as the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act is known in German. Much of the criticism enumerated in the 95 theses focuses on:

• the enormous amount of administrative work necessary for the fixed-term contracts of academics;
• the increasing competition and envy the fixed-term rules have created within academia;
• the falling quality of university teaching produced by the time pressures associated with fixed-term positions;
• the prevention of diversity;
• the prevention of scientific findings and the falling quality of scientific work.