Tenure track
Tenure track: The path to a life-long professorship
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The tenure track concept comes from the U.S. higher education system and, since 2002, it has been an alternative in Germany, too. Below, you can learn more about what tenure means and what prerequisites must first be met.
Updated: 2025-04-08
Tenure-track professorship: Brief overview
A tenure-track junior professorship automatically leads to a life-long position after a maximum of six years, assuming positive performance evaluations, with no additional need for the position to be advertised or additional application formalities to be met.
In 2017, a joint federal-state programme for the funding of tenure-track positions came into force in Germany with the goal of funding 1,000 new tenure-track professorships by 2032 with a total of 1 billion euros. The first evaluation of the programme, carried out in 2023, was positive, with 971 new tenure-track professorships having been established by the reference date in May 2023. According to that evaluation, the predictability and transparency of the tenure-track path to an academic career were higher than for other pathways to a professorship.
Definition: What does tenure mean?
The path to a permanent professorship in Germany is often difficult and associated with a number of uncertainties. The tenure-track professorship is intended to offer young academics a more predictable alternative. That predictability comes from the fact that it includes, from the outset, a guarantee that holders of a tenure-track position, after completing a fixed probationary period, will be offered a lifetime professorship without any additional need for the position to be advertised or for additional application formalities to be met. Since the amendment to the German Framework Act for Higher Education in 2002, the tenure track has been a possible supplement when advertising a junior professorship.
Still, the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV) distinguishes between a genuine and a non-genuine tenure track. Accordingly, a non-genuine tenure track only offers the possibility of receiving a permanent professorship, while a genuine tenure-track provides a legally binding commitment to a life-long professorship in the event of a positive evaluation.
The DHV believes there is an obligation for the job announcement to make clear which type of tenure track is on offer. Without exception, those tenure-track professorships that are funded by the joint federal-state funding programme that came into force in 2017 are genuine tenure-track professorships.
Prerequisites for a tenure-track professorship
The prerequisites one needs for a tenure-track professorship are the same as those for a normal junior professorship, a „habilitation“ (the step beyond Ph.D. traditionally required in Germany to secure a professorship) or a position as a junior research group leader. They include:
- a completed university degree
- pedagogical competence
- a particular aptitude for academic work (usually demonstrated by the quality of the doctoral dissertation)
The tenure track targets early career academics in their postdoc phase, where they have amassed experience in research and perhaps even teaching – at a university or a non-university research institute. Because the aim of the tenure-track model is to promote promising young academics and to provide them with a pathway to a life-long professorship, expectations of applicants are high.
The precise requirements for a tenure-track professorship may vary from state to state and from university to university. They can be found in the regulations of the university in question. Frequently, for example, there is a ban on in-house hires. As such, tenure-track positions are frequently only available to those who change universities after earning their doctorate or who have worked in research for several years away from their university.
The tenure-track procedure: The path to a life-long professorship
The procedure for obtaining a tenure-track position is not the same at every university, but there are plenty of steps that most or all institutions have in common, such as the requirement that the available position be publicly advertised. A list of tenure-track positions that are funded by the joint federal-state tenure-track programme can be found at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Once the university has collected the applications for a position, a shortlist of the best candidates is assembled. The candidates who make it that far must then go through the appointment procedure, as with regular professorships. You can read more about the appointment procedure here.
Those who are ultimately chosen for a tenure-track professorship then begin a probationary period that lasts for up to six years. Frequently, this phase is divided into two parts, with the first part lasting three to four years and ending with an interim evaluation to determine if the employment relationship will continue. According to the publication “Forschung & Lehre,” 98 percent of these evaluations are positive. The second part of the probationary period ends with a final evaluation, which, if favourable, clears the way for a tenured professorship.
At the University of Bonn, to take one example, the tenure-track regulations hold that the final evaluation must consist of a self-evaluation report and four expert appraisals of the candidate. The evaluation also includes a public, academic lecture by the junior professor, held in front of the faculty’s tenure-track commission.
The regulations for the evaluation of tenure-track positions at the University of Bremen, meanwhile, stipulate that at least six reviewers be proposed who must also be internationally recognized. Depending on the profile of the professorship, foreign evaluators may also be included.
Tenure-track professorships: The federal-state programme
Following the changes to the German Framework Act for Higher Education in 2002, it took quite some time in many German states before junior professorships with a tenure track option began to be offered. It was only the federal-state programme for funding the tenure-track model, agreed on in 2016, that boosted this direct pathway to a life-long professorship.
According to the Ministry of Education and Research, 1,000 approvals were granted in the two rounds of the programme in 2017 and 2019, which will fund tenure-track professorships at 75 universities until 2032. Which means that the chances of obtaining a tenure-track position are on the rise – but the number of such positions remains limited and are reserved for only the very best. As part of the reform of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act, there have been calls to establish even more tenure-track positions in order to offer young academics a more predictable and attractive career path.
The first evaluation of the federal-state programme, carried out in 2023, was positive. Accordingly, 971 new tenure-track positions were filled by the reference date of May 31, 2023. The evaluation also found that the predictability and transparency of this pathway to an academic career are higher. Still, the share of tenure-track professorships is – at just 8 percent of all those on a path to a life-time professorship – still quite low.
