This news might be of interest to several of you: http://www.tagesschau.sf.tv/Nachrichten/Archiv/2012/04/27/Schweiz/Uni-Zuerich-auf-Wachstumskurs?WT.zugang=front_mel

In short, the University of Zurich is going to double the number of Assistant-Professors – which are contracts limited in duration. (And no tenure track.)

They say it’s in order to improve the situation for young researchers… I think, the situation is rather different: By increasing the number of positions limited in time, it will probably even increase the problem. What happens when such a contract runs out and you do not get an ordinary professorship? You have spent even more years in academia and it is even more difficult to find a job outside academia…

Obviously for universities it’s attractive to keep more people in the system who hope to finally end up with a permanent position in academia, their new proposal might increase the number of people that choose to stay on the academic path (and that would even worsen the situation, given the number of permanent position won’t increase (or maybe even diminish? in order to finance the new positions…))

Compared to other systems, e.g. USA, GB, France, people already have to spend more time in academia before being able to have a chance to get a permanent position. This change seems to even worsen the situation…

But I guess my comments only apply, if all the Universities make such a change of policy. Maybe we should find an opportunity to talk about it. Maybe you even think, that I completely misjudge the situation.

See you soon,

Emmanuel