My workplace: Office space, equipment and facilities

All rooms, offices and other work spaces should be furnished and ready for you to move into. If you have questions about your office space or work space, please contact your faculty adviser or the faculty’s chief administrative officer who will be pleased to assist with all administrative and organizational matters.

If you have already signed the letter of agreement regarding your professorial appointment, but the date of your official appointment ceremony is still some time away, we recommend that you make use of this time and contact the faculty adviser or the chief administrative officer early on for assistance – if possible, two to three months before your official appointment. Ideally, you should also keep faculty management informed of any decisions or developments. By taking this approach, any questions about furnishing your office or work spaces or installing technical equipment can be resolved in good time.

The basic equipment and furnishings to be installed in your office and work spaces, including all IT devices and their connection to the campus network, are agreed between you and the university’s Central Procurement Division (ZB). As soon as you have been notified about which budgetary unit you have been allocated to, you can contact the responsible member of staff at the Central Purchasing Unit. You can then complete the application forms such as those for office furnishings and IT equipment, which can be downloaded from the Central Purchasing Unit’s webpage. IT equipment can be supplied either with or without a pre-installed operating system and other software. If you would prefer to have the operating system and application software pre-installed by the University IT Centre (HIZ), this needs to be specified on the application form. To make sure that you have fully understood the details of the ordering process, we suggest that you either call the IT-Service-Desk and ask to be put through to your adviser who will be able to assist you with selecting appropriate software, or you request assistance by opening a support ticket in the HIZ ticketing system, If you need help but do not yet have a user ID for IT access (UdS user code), you can send an email (from a personal email account) to support(at)hiz-saarland.de.

If you have any questions about the ordering process or the application forms, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the advisers at the Central Purchasing Unit, who are listed here. For the duration of your appointment at Saarland University, the Central Purchasing Unit is the service point that you should contact whenever you require furnishings and fittings or IT equipment. Please also read the following information on financing furnishings, fittings and equipment of your office or work space.

Please note that to activate IT devices and to enable internet and phone connectivity, you will need to contact the IT-Service-Desk at Saarland University.

The Central Procurement Division has also compiled a list of key legal provisions and regulations athat are of relevance for the procurement of furnishing and equipment for university work spaces. For instance, the procurement rules specify the contract value above which the procurement process must be put out to tender.

If you need to procure toxic or problematic substances for your laboratory or similar research facility, please contact the hazardous materials and laboratory supplies section of the Central Procurement Division ZB, where a large range of chemicals are held in stock or can be ordered.

The initial procurement of furniture, fittings and equipment for your offices and work spaces will be financed from central funds through the  Central Procurement Division (ZB) and its various specialist sections. If you wish to purchase any items after these initial acquisitions, you must specify the relevant fund code (Fondsnummer) and your budgetary unit number (Finanzstellennummer). These will be communicated to you in the letter that you will have received from the Accounting and Finance Division (HF).

The initial procurement of technical equipment (e.g. computers) will be paid from your initial funding package (Berufungsbudget) that was negotiated with you during the professorial appointment procedure. The initial procurement of technical equipment (e.g. computers) will be paid from your initial funding package (Berufungsbudget) that was negotiated with you during the professorial appointment procedure. These purchases will be drawn from the ‘class 8’ fund that was assigned to your professorial position. Please refer to the information sheet on initial funding packages. These purchases will be drawn from the ‘class 8’ fund that has been assigned to your professorial position. The funds that constitute the initial funding package for a new professorial appointment normally have to be spent within a certain time limit.

All other purchases – annual running costs and other operational expenses, e.g. printing costs, office supplies and the replacement or upgrading of furnishings, fittings and equipment – can be financed through your budgetary unit and the funds for equipment and materials. In such cases, you will need to provide your budgetary unit number (Finanzstellennummer) and the relevant fund code (Fondsnummer). If you are unsure about financing arrangements or about your available funds, please contact the Accounting and Finance Division. For more information, please visit our financing basics webpage.

If you need to get rid of items such as old office furniture, please first get in touch with your faculty adviser or the faculty’s chief administrative officer and with the Central Procurement Division (ZB). to discuss options. It may well be the case that these items or objects can be used elsewhere. 

If you need to dispose of hazardous waste, please contact the Chemical Waste Disposal Team .

If you are unable to move into your rooms, offices or other work spaces because they need to be renovated or refurbished, please get in touch with the staff at the Campus Development and Construction Management Division (CB), who will advise you on how the renovation/refurbishment process will proceed.

If you have questions about fire protection, the safe storage and handling of hazardous materials or other practical safety issues or if you need information on legal aspects of workplace safety, please contact the Occupational Safety Unit for assistance. The Occupational Safety Unit also run training courses for you and for members of your team on a range of safety-related topics, such as safe and smart ways to equip your work space.

If you are having building access issues, please contact your faculty advisers as soon as possible. If the problem is an administrative one, e.g. you have not been issued with a key on your first day of work, whom you need to contact will depend on the type of key system in use. If your building uses a conventional key system, please get in touch with the Facility Management Division (Dezernat FM). You can also apply for a key using the key application form. If your building uses an electronic key, e.g. a keycard or your UdS Card, please contact the access control system staff at the Facility Management Division or send an email to zks(at)uni-saarland.de. If the problem is an administrative one, e.g. you have not been issued with a key on your first day of work, whom you need to contact will depend on the type of key system in use. If your building uses a conventional key system, please get in touch with the Facility Management Division (FM). You can also apply for a key using the key application form. If your building uses an electronic key, e.g. a keycard or your UdS Card, please contact the access control system staff via zks(at)uni-saarland.de.

If you have an urgent problem, e.g. you have locked yourself out or you are having access issues outside of normal office hours and your building uses conventional lock and key access, you can contact the central monitoring station, which is staffed around the clock, for assistance. 

If you are experiencing problems with your telephone, network or other IT system, we recommend opening a support ticket in the  HIZ ticketing system which will initiate the troubleshooting procedure. Simply sign in using your normal UdS ID code. If that is not possible, because you are still waiting for your UdS ID code or you are unable to access the network, please contact the IT-Service-Desk.

If you have an IT emergency or other urgent technical problem outside of normal office hours (e.g. lights not working, heating system is defective), please contact the central monitoring station for assistance.

Please also refer to our IT problems web page.

This sort of major organizational change is best discussed beforehand with your faculty management team. Once an agreement has been reached, you will need to proceed in close consultation with the faculty and with the Campus Development and Construction Management Division (CB).