The problem has been known for a long time: anyone who wants to work at a university as a young scientist often has to move from one fixed-term contract to another. With the bitter result that real life and family planning are almost impossible.
The parties in the Traffic Light Coalition had promised to reform the law on scientific temporary contracts. The road to reform was long – especially since there was a sharp conflict of interests between universities and research institutions on the one hand and young scientists on the other.
Enter minimum contract periods
The law now introduced by the Federal Cabinet will not make all the problems of young scientists disappear into thin air. But there are objective improvements. First and foremost, it is about the minimum contract terms that should be offered. The correct steps are that the first pre-doctoral employment contract should generally last at least three years and the first post-doctoral contract at least two years.
At the same time, the federal government imposes a reasonable limit. Anyone who has completed a doctoral thesis should not only be allowed a fixed-term contract for up to six years, but only for four years. There should only be two more years with a commitment to a permanent position. This is reasonable. The decision about whether someone has a lifelong perspective in science should be made earlier than before.
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