DOI: 10.1002/anie.201301692

Tenure Track: The Royal Road toProfessorship?Wolfgang A. Herrmann*

The question mark was included delib-erately. In light of the wide variety ofuniversity systems and disciplinary cul-tures, there is no “royal road” to pro-fessorship. Yet international best prac-tices in academic recruiting and talentdevelopment appear to converge on thecareer path known as “tenure track.”Although the concept of a tenure trackis foreign to the traditional approachhere in Germany, the potential benefitsof integrating it into our system areunmistakable.

Viewed as a whole, the German uni-versity system is highly capable. Intraining experts in specific disciplines,it rivals the best schools in the world.“German engineering” is a strong inter-national brand. Young people educatedin German universities are in highdemand at the top research institutionsabroad. The innovative power of Ger-man industry is unquestioned.

Nevertheless, our traditional structuresin most cases will not withstand thedramatic transformations underway inscience, industry, and society. We areexperiencing intensified competitivepressures. Germany�s skilled workersare not being trained for the Germanmarket alone. Only in a small fraction ofcases are German inventions made intoindustrial goods in Germany. New andexpanding markets, especially in Asia,exert an increasing influence on theentire world economy. Facing suchchanges, Europe is beginning to sum-mon the strengths of its cultural diver-sity to collectively develop a new eco-

nomic power. What will be decisive, ofcourse, is the availability of talent. Buttalented people are more mobile thanever before, and they seek out the mostpromising environment for their owndevelopment. Large research programsof the European Union are taking onthis challenge with massive financialinvestments.

The German university system has alsoentered into a new dimension of com-petition. Universities that still allowthemselves to be treated as subordinatestate agencies have already lost thefuture, because their best talents mi-grate outward and are not replaced byequally strong contributors. On theother hand, a more competitive modelfor academia is on the rise here: theentrepreneurial university, ready foraction, which takes its agenda into itsown hands, systematically broadens itsfinancial basis, and focuses on recruit-ing, rewarding, and retaining the besttalents.

The central competitive instrument ofthe universities is an internationallycompatible recruitment and career sys-tem. Here the Technische Universit�tM�nchen (TUM) is leading the way:“TUM Faculty Tenure Track” involvespromotion of the best within the system;it means that at TUM, the road to fullprofessorship stands open for talentedyoung scientists through sustained ach-ievement. Thus, by placing performancein the foreground, we overcome theGerman system�s static narrowing of thepath for academic appointments.

In practical terms, this is what “tenuretrack” means at TUM: Entry as assistantprofessor (at the W2 salary level; com-pensation levels of the “W” scale are

specified in laws that are binding nation-wide) with the possibility to qualifywithin six years for the next step—associate professor—and subsequentlyto advance to full professor (both at theW3 level). The salaries, work environ-ments, and resources are differentiatedaccording to individual performanceand shaped by discipline-specific marketdemands. On the other hand, it isinherent in the nature of this compet-itive system that with inadequate qual-ification for promotion after six years,the employment at TUM ends (“up orout”).

Qualified young faculty members whohave joined TUM as assistant professorsknow the expectations and criteria theymust meet in the evaluation that accom-panies the six-year tenure-track phase(transparency principle). Also, they areintegrated into a mentoring and supportsystem that, not least, facilitates a con-stant exchange with their colleaguesacross the entire portfolio of disciplinesand subjects (TUM Tenure Track Acad-emy). The assessment criteria are notconfined to research; they obviouslymust also embrace the teaching perfor-mance and make allowance for career-and family-related circumstances. Theteaching workload of the assistant pro-fessor amounts to five contact hours perweek (instead of nine); the balance willbe borne by tenured professors as a con-tribution for the good of the faculty asa whole. Science-related special situa-tions (founding of startup companies,for example) are likewise taken intoaccount, and are an identifying featureof the entrepreneurial university.

Wolfgang A. HerrmannPresident, TechnischeUniversit�t M�nchen

[*] Prof. W. A. HerrmannTechnische Universit�t M�nchenArcisstrasse 21, 80333 M�nchen (Germany)E-mail: praesident@tum.de

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Appointment to an assistant professor-ship is bound up with a series ofpreconditions; among these, interna-tional experience (activity abroad) isimperative. Also advantageous is a can-didate�s prior success in winning third-party support for his or her independentresearch program (e.g., the EmmyNoether and Heisenberg programs ofthe Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft;Lichtenberg Professorships from theVolkswagen Foundation; Sofja Kovalev-skaya Awards from the Alexander vonHumboldt Foundation; Rudolf Mçßba-uer Tenure Track Assistant Professor-ships from the TUM Institute for Ad-vanced Study; ERC Starting Grantsfrom the EU), as this reflects the judg-ment of scientific review panels.

TUM Faculty Tenure Track is coupledwith the Max Planck Society (MPG) toform the initiative MaxPlanck@TUM,which is aimed at engaging and promot-ing another talent pool, namely theyoung scientists of the MPG. This meansthat young scientists who are MPGgroup leaders (as in the Minerva Pro-gram) but have not yet been offeredpermanent positions at the MPG may beintegrated into TUM as assistant pro-fessors. In this way, the TUM/MPGprofessors gather further teaching expe-rience and can lead their own doctoralcandidates to completion of their PhDtheses.

In the period 2013-2020, TUM willcreate a total of 100(!) additional ten-ure-track professorships in order to setthe new system in motion. The expectedeffects include considerably loweringthe average age of the faculty (at presentaround 500 professors), broadening ourresearch portfolio, and accentuating ourinternally competitive culture.

Despite this fundamental innovation inthe domain of genuine start-to-finishtenure-track appointments, TUM willalso in the future appoint professors athigher entry levels: Established, suc-cessful scientists with high potential forfuture achievement will be hired asassociate professors, with permanentstatus at the W3 level. The same goesfor internationally leading scientists whowill be recruited as full professors.

The planning horizon is constructed sothat 30% of the full/chair professorships(W3) that become vacant, as well as allof the traditional (permanent) W2 pro-fessorships that will be running out, willbe converted into the tenure-track con-tingent. Thus in the future there willonly be temporary W2 professorships(assistant professor), while professors inthe remaining categories are employedon permanent contracts. The effort tomaster recruitment of young talentswith so-called junior professorships(W1) is being discontinued.

TUM Faculty Tenure Track stands andfalls with a quality-management systemthat enables bold decision-making. Theessential principle is: Place evaluationand decision-making in different hands.In both cases, discipline-specific expertcompetence is combined with criticaldistance. All participants are guided bythe “TUM Faculty Recruitment Code ofConduct”. The TUM Appointment andTenure Board consists of experiencedscientists (ten from the TUM, one fromthe MPG) who are barred from partic-ipation on other appointment commit-tees. Like the Code of Conduct, theformal procedures by which TUM isinitiating its new recruiting and careersystem are spelled out in a publiclyaccessible document.

The main features of the TUM FacultyTenure Track program have proventhemselves over the course of decadesat elite universities in other countries.However, one must take cultural differ-ences between disciplines into account.Thus one could say, albeit somewhatsimplified, that the German engineeringsciences are more strongly oriented toindustry and practice, which certainly isa great strength; top universities in theUnited States (such as CalTech, Stan-ford, and MIT) pursue a more meth-odological direction with strong cover-age of the fundamentals. With this in-sight, TUM Faculty Tenure Track isexpected to bring us further forward inthe technical disciplines.

For chemistry, the advantages are plainto see. Excellent young researchers attop universities abroad avoid Germanchemistry departments, because even

with the best performance they wouldbe stuck in the conventional W2 profes-sorship, or would have to change uni-versities in order to advance. There isa corresponding lack of internationalityamong the faculty members. Here the“real tenure track” will reaffirm thereputation of chemistry at TUM (12thplace worldwide according to the 2012Shanghai Ranking), because we havecleared away a major obstacle in thecompetition for the best minds. Now theframework conditions that we offer areno worse than in the chemistry depart-ments of Harvard, Stanford, and Berke-ley. Admittedly, it may challenge ourcourage to part company with thosewhose performance fails in the end tocome up to the standards for promotion.In the old system, that is, with a W2professorship for life, this correctivefactor is unknown. But simply offeringa young W2 professor permanent “civilservant” status at the same level is notinternationally competitive; that pros-pect is like starving halfway along thecareer path.

The bottom line: Every change to thetraditional German education systemtakes effort and must overcome manybureaucratic hurdles (and state minis-tries). Thus a widespread tenure-trackprocess will probably become effectiveonly slowly, but is certain for the uni-versities who are willing to becomecompetitive. Of course, as well as cour-age, money is also required in order tofinance the rising extra costs. This fund-ing needs to be generated. There aremany possibilities for this, includingappropriate and therefore efficiency-oriented savings and a reasonable over-heads policy. I expect that in around15 years, we will have an extensivetenure-track system as in the end, nostate will want to see its universitiesdeteriorating. One expected (political)countermovement will come from theprevalent mentality of job security:sacked after six years? That�s awful!However, this exact point has beena success or failure for the tenure-tracksystem worldwide. Until all Germanuniversities adhere to international bestpractice, the differences in performancebetween institutions will becomegreater.

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Editorial

W. A. Herrmann* &&&&—&&&&

Tenure Track: The Royal Road toProfessorship?

“… The Technische Universit�t M�nchen(TUM) Faculty Tenure Track involves thepromotion of the best within the system; itmeans that at TUM, the road to fullprofessorship stands open for talented youngscientists through sustained achievement…”Read more in the Editorial by Wolf-gang A. Herrmann.

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4 www.angewandte.org � 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 2 – 4� �

These are not the final page numbers!