The WISNA programme

One thousand new tenure-track professorships are being permanently created at seventy-five German universities and equivalent institutions of higher education in the ‘Programme for the Promotion of Young Academics’ (WISNA programme for short; also known as the tenure-track programme), which is funded by the federal and state governments. The universities and higher education institutions receiving funding were selected in two approval rounds in 2017 and 2019 in a science-led competitive process.

The tenure-track professorship is aimed at prospective academics in the early stages of their careers: The tenure track offers them a predictable and transparent path to a professorship as well as an early decision on whether they will remain in academia permanently. The programme therefore aims to encourage a broad and structural establishment of the tenure track for professorships in Germany. However, the other academic qualification and career paths are also to be systematically reconsidered in terms of their peculiarities and interrelationships and generally organised in a more predictable and structured manner.

Prospective academics are also to be shown career paths beyond the professorship. Finally, the WISNA programme aims to improve the compatibility of career and family as well as equal opportunities in academic qualification and career paths.

Further information on the WISNA programme can be found on the specialist portal for the tenure track programme.