A Model That Aims to Encourage

The Heisenberg professorship: Interview with Beate Scholz and Paul Heuermann

The first Heisenberg professorships have been approved. How has the response been?
Heuermann: Initially only the scientists themselves showed an interest. But now we also get many enquiries from university departments and administrations. We welcome this development because it means that this new funding instrument is successfully establishing itself. We also get a broader range of subjects, even though it’s harder for smaller subjects with less financial and HR flexibility to decide on a specific research strategy.
Scholz: What I consider important is that the universities focus more strongly on aspects of research strategy when they make their HR decisions. That’s also becoming apparent with the Heisenberg professorship and the universities’ growing interest in it. It seems they’ve now begun to actively recruit outstanding researchers and are trying to retain them. In this way the Heisenberg professorship achieves its desired effect: universities develop appropriate mechanisms for long-term career paths, and an awareness for systematic HR planning and development is thus being created at German universities.

There is no age limit for Heisenberg professors. Why?
Scholz: We want to create flexible career paths, enable diversity, make room for different professional biographies, and accommodate a wide range of researcher personalities. What counts are scientific quality and a person’s track record in relation to their age. Flexibility is also important when it comes to dual career couples in academia. If you want to attract top-level researchers, you increasingly have to offer attractive professional opportunities to their often equally qualified partners – assuming, of course, they have the right track record. This aspect is becoming more and more important for our international competitiveness.
Heuermann: Getting rid of the age limit means, most of all, that the DFG’s Head Office must shift from using merely formal criteria to a more quality-oriented decision, based on the review and scientific evaluation of a researcher’s track record. But the Heisenberg professorship also offers more flexibility in another respect. Researchers can first take advantage of the fellowship, for example by doing research abroad. Then, for the Heisenberg professorship, which has a longterm outlook, they can find a university which suits their own innovative field of research. That switch should occur no more than between 18 months and 2 years of having begun the fellowship. This leaves sufficient time for researchers to prove themselves before the evaluation.

Who has applied so far?
Heuermann: I want to point out two groups in particular: Heisenberg fellows who take advantage of the possibility to switch, and leaders of Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups.
Scholz: Our idea is to use the DFG funding chain to develop a model for a type of tenure track that is similar to the American tenure-track system. In that sense the Emmy Noether Programme is the equivalent of an assistant professorship. Junior research group leadership does not yet result in a permanent position. The Heisenberg professorship is thus the counterpart to the associate professorship. In other words, researchers can use the consecutive links of the funding chain to attain qualification at the highest level, because at each step they undergo a strict scientific review. In addition to that, it’s important to speed up the appointment process for professors. In a competitive global environment we cannot and should not keep our top candidates waiting too long.
Heuermann: Incidentally, our experiences so far show that the period between the DFG decision and the beginning of the Heisenberg professorship is only six months on average. This might be in part because some universities, to the extent that state regulations allow it, shorten the appointment process by including anonymised DFG reviews. It also helps speed up the process when university management is actively involved from the outset – because for the structure to evolve as intended, a professorship may have to be renamed or cut from another department. But the idea is definitely not to simply replace or duplicate an existing professorship.

So the DFG expects the university to make a clear commitment?
Scholz: Exactly. This is based on an idea similar to the Max Planck Society’s Harnack Priniciple. That is, pick an exceptional scientist and structurally develop a new core research area around that person. Because the foremost purpose of the Heisenberg professorship is really to promote excellent individuals.
Heuermann: That’s why universities can’t apply. However, university management does play a key role in this process.
Scholz: An implicit goal of this funding programme is also to cultivate a mindset at universities that they should actively look all over the world for great minds that are of interest because of their innovative research. At the same time, the Heisenberg professorship is a model that is meant to encourage a tenure-track mentality in Germany. We have to make sure that the best scientists and academics can look forward to a secure career if we want to strengthen Germany as a research location.