Academic Personnel Development

Personnel Development for Academic Staff at Leuphana University Lüneburg regards itself as a central service department for the support of its academic staff. By networking and cooperating with other central and decentralised departments of Leuphana in the field, personnel development measures are bundled for the various academic target groups. Individual, confidential counselling sessions can be requested. Thematically, personnel development for Leuphana's academic staff is located in the Vice President's Department for Research and Academic Qualification and is structurally anchored in the President's Office.

If you are an international scholar interested in an academic career in Germany, please note the current publication (in German & English) by the German Academic Exchange Service.

Personnel development for academic staff supports academics in their career orientation and professional development and offers measures for interdisciplinary competence development. These include events on specific topics, workshops and individual forms of counselling.

The counselling provided by the responsible officer is specifically geared to questions about career options in science. If you would like advice on possible career paths in business and society, you will find the right contact person at the Graduate School.

The Office is an independent, confidential, gender- and diversity-sensitive organisational unit.

Every semester, the Department for Personnel Development for Academic Staff offers a diverse programme for careers in academia. Experienced Leuphana specialists and leaders, along with external experts, offer inspiration and workshops in varying formats and scopes, online or in person, for the individual qualification phases from doctoral studies to the achievement of a lifetime professorship, as well as for science-related professional fields.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding the event programmes of previous years.

• Programme of events for the summer semester 2025
• Programme of events for the winter semester 2024/2025
• Programme of events for the summer semester 2024
• Programme of events for the winter semester 2023/2024
• Programme of events for the winter semester 2022/2023
• Programme of events for the summer semester 2022
• Programme of events for the winter semester 2021/2022
• Programme of events for the summer semester 2021

Childcare can be provided for on-site events. Please register with Dr. Annemarie Burandt (weiterbildung@leuphana.de) two weeks in advance.

Below you will find information, offers and tips for the various target groups of personnel development for academic staff. The contents are continuously adapted and expanded.

Increasingly, professors hold management positions and are responsible for the personal development of their staff. The Academic Personnel Development Office at Leuphana can serve as a contact point for professors for these challenges and, if necessary, develop areas for reflection and appropriate measures. In particular, they can provide support for the personal development of the academic staff assigned to them.

Newly appointed professors and junior professors are to be particularly supported in their start at Leuphana. The measures range from an onboarding process to personal initial consultations to specific offers for career planning and development, especially in the areas of research, teaching and scholarship. As new members of the university, newly appointed professors and junior professors bring with them ideas, skills and potential. At the same time, they are faced with the task of finding their way in a new and innovative academic environment, building networks, producing excellent academic performance, pursuing their individual career development and, depending on the job profile, actively shaping their own academic career path at an early stage.

Research Assistants (WiMis) work in research and teaching in a variety of roles. The different qualification levels, job profiles and tasks as well as the contractual framework must be taken into account. The heterogeneous needs and situations will be focused on in order to be able to provide constructive support for career development so that the target group can develop its potential to the full. The aim is to identify and reflect on career development perspectives within or outside academia and to support strategic planning. Transparency, participation and confidentiality are the cornerstones of the support provided.

In addition to the Graduate School's offerings, the Academic Personnel Development Office is the contact point for doctoral candidates who want to explore and reflect on their academic career options. A doctorate is the first step towards an academic career. The global knowledge society also requires highly qualified employees, so that a doctorate also prepares and qualifies for an outstanding position in business and society. The target group for personnel development is not only internal doctoral candidates, but also external doctoral students and those who decide to pursue a career outside of academia during their doctoral studies. For this group, it is particularly important to reflect on career perspectives and the many options for working within and outside of academia. The Graduate School offers support especially to those doctoral candidates who decide to pursue a career in business and society. The academic personal development programmes are aimed primarily at doctoral candidates who are considering an academic career and want to reflect on the opportunities and challenges of this option.

Whoever wants to pursue an academic career with the goal of a lifetime professorship faces a tough international competition. Therefore, the postdoc phase must be consciously planned and designed. The options vary, among other things, in financial and structural terms; they imply different degrees of integration and affiliation with the university (e.g. scholarship, research assistant position) and are different in terms of time and task requirements. Depending on your own interests, you need to weigh up the options and at the same time be aware that the qualification phase is a training phase.

A wide range of different scholarships and fellowships allow for focused research without teaching obligations. Scholarship holders benefit from the networks and offers of the funding organisations and should actively seek out contact with colleagues in the field at Leuphana and beyond, for example in the doctoral colloquia and at conferences. Teaching experience, which is important for later appointments, can be gained in parallel through teaching assignments.

The advantage of employment as a research assistant (WiMi) in the respective subject context is that, in addition to the formal security in the public sector, you will be in regular personal contact with researchers at the university, directly experience professional developments and research projects, and be able to build your own network relatively easily. The employment contracts fall under the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz, WissZeitVG), the deadlines and flexibilities of which, e.g. in the case of the birth or adoption of children, health restrictions or care work, can be explained at any time by Leuphana's Personnel Services.

Particularly beneficial for a career are formats of excellence for scientists at an early stage of their career, such as a DFG-funded position, leading an Emmy Noether group, an ERC grant or a junior professorship (with or without tenure track). These enable them to systematically prepare for the tasks of a professorship and to actually experience a professorship or a similar position for the first time. Their own research profile is strengthened as a result of increased visibility. A habilitation or equivalent is, however, required for the Heisenberg Programme. These examples of formats for excellence are particularly recognised when applying for a professorship.

Supportive of one's career are also:

• participation in third-party funded projects
• Takeover of an administrative or substitute professorship
• Gaining experience by changing university, especially with study periods in foreign countries

The Department for Personnel Development for Academic Staff, together with other central service units at Leuphana, aims to provide transparent and informative guidance on the options available during the postdoc phase in order to provide academics with the best possible support for their career path. Individual, confidential counselling, information on external coaching and further training impulses and workshops supplement the information provided by the university. Together, the service units are continuously developing new approaches and formats to create optimal forms of further development and support for postdocs.

As a general rule, scientists in the postdoc phase should remain open to different career paths. The progressive academic qualification allows for a change to a non-university career at all levels, for example to a non-university research institution, and also to a non-scientific professional career. Leuphana's service facilities also provide support here.

The number of professorial positions in the academic system is limited and subject to fierce international competition. As a result, only a small proportion of highly educated academics can remain in the academic system at each qualification level, and a switch to a non-academic career must always be considered as an alternative and not be seen as a ‘failure’.

Dr. Hannah Jacobmeyer is the point of contact for researchers at Leuphana University Lüneburg with questions regarding professional development. She holds a doctorate in English Studiens and has over 20 years of professional experience in education and research within and outside of higher education.

As the coordinator of the federal-state programme for the support of early career researchers (WISNA), Karin Becker is the point of contact for postdoctoral researchers and junior professors within the WISNA programme. She submitted her dissertation in art history in the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ at Universität Hamburg in 2024.