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With #IchBinHanna, German academia protests against a law that forces researchers out

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5, pages 1114–1115 (2021)Cite this article

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First, the law impedes German academia from flourishing and represents a systematic waste of intellectual resources. Like in other countries, most researchers are on a large number of brief fixed-term contracts throughout their career. In Germany, however (note that Austria adopted a similar law in May 20212), the WissZeitVG enacts that researchers can only be employed on fixed-term contracts for six years before and six after their PhD. Thus, with few exceptions, after 12 years, researchers who have not been offered a professorship or one of the few other tenured positions are forced to leave German academia — for good. This inevitable loss of highly qualified personnel seriously darkens the prospects of German academia.

Second, the WissZeitVG represents a waste of public money and helps to manifest precarious working conditions, with detrimental consequences for society, research and individual researchers. Specifically, the WissZeitVG often delays the definite decision on whether someone can stay in academia until researchers are in their forties. It does so by continuously fuelling young researchers’ hope for a professorship with the six-year limit hanging above their brilliant minds like the sword of Damocles. Thereby, the law also makes researchers accept highly problematic working conditions3,4. When time is up, the unlucky Hannas are forced to leave the system at an age when they will have difficulties finding work outside academia. With them, much of the public money invested leaves the system too. Beyond this, the chains of short-term contracts result in abandoned projects when a researcher’s contract ends before completion, which hinders advance and innovation; not to mention long-term research projects, which cannot be approached at all with short-term contracts. At an individual level, the hope for a professorship hampers researchers’ life planning and forces them into a ‘nomadic life’; many postpone starting a family while longing for more security — and may still be forced to eventually leave academia. Those who lack financial backing or familial support, or simply decide they cannot afford the precarious conditions, are likely to be deterred from pursuing an academic career, with consequences for diversity.

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Fig. 1: Development of the protest and relevant political reactions.

References

  1. Gesetz über befristete Arbeitsverträge in der Wissenschaft (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz - WissZeitVG). Bundesamt für Justiz https://go.nature.com/3rcE8Ua (2020).

  2. 93. Bundesgesetz, mit dem das Universitätsgesetz 2002, das Hochschul-Qualitätssicherungsgesetz, das Hochschulgesetz 2005, das Fachhochschulgesetz und das Privathochschulgesetz geändert werden. Bundeskanzleramt der Republik Österreich https://go.nature.com/3iiIWUb (2021).

  3. Hobler, D. & Reuyss, S. DGB Hochschulreport: Arbeits- und Beschäftigungsbedingungen an Hochschulen in Deutschland (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 2020).

  4. Confederation of German Trade Unions, Bolenius, S. & Hannack, E. DGB Report on Higher Education Institutions: Selected Findings. Temporary Contracts and Overtime Are the Norm in Academia (DGB, 2020).

  5. Analysis of Tweets for the #IchBinHannah Campaign (GitHub repository, 2021); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5068748

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Heinrich Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Amrei Bahr

  2. Centre for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Christine Blume

  3. Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Christine Blume

  4. Institute for German Language and Comparative Literature, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

    Kristin Eichhorn

  5. Department of History, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Sebastian Kubon

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  1. Amrei Bahr
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  2. Christine Blume
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  4. Sebastian Kubon
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Correspondence to Amrei Bahr.

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Bahr, A., Blume, C., Eichhorn, K. et al. With #IchBinHanna, German academia protests against a law that forces researchers out. Nat Hum Behav 5, 1114–1115 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01178-6

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