UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

The committee prepares an initial draft of the call text based on our templates and, in consultation with the Dean's Office, decides on the location (interdisciplinary, e.g. in Der Zeit or Nature as well as in subject-specific journals and societies) and duration (usually 6 weeks) of the call. It is important to ensure that the focus is not too narrow so as not to exclude potential applicants. In addition, the appointment committee should already draw up a list of potential candidates and decide on how to proactively approach applicants.

Templates can be found here.

The members of the appointment committee have the opportunity to view the complete application documents via the appointment portal. The Dean's Office prepares an application synopsis of all applicants. Attention is again drawn to the guidelines on bias. Commission members must temporarily leave the room if they are biased towards individual applicants. If a person is invited for whom there is bias, the committee member must leave the committee permanently and be replaced if necessary. The committee assesses the applications received individually, takes into account unavoidable delays in the CVs and evaluates the applicants using the categories A = invite, B = possibly invite and C = do not invite. The evaluations must be justified and documented. Suitable persons are then invited to the interview, with special consideration given to women and disabled persons. In areas in which women are underrepresented, § 9 LGG stipulates that at least as many women as men or all female applicants must be invited to interview if they meet the required qualifications for the position. The committee also decides on the dates and duration of the academic presentation, the teaching sample (incl. topic) and the interview with the committee. These lectures are organized by the spokesperson and the institute.

The appointment committee determines by secret vote which applicants (usually 3-4 people) are to receive comparative external reviews. The committee then discusses which experts should be appointed. A total of at least two external comparative expert opinions are required, ideally three, whereby at least one should be prepared by a woman. The reviewers should have a status at least comparable to the advertised professorship and have in-depth specialist knowledge, whereby no differentiation is made between W2 and W3. In order to avoid the appearance of bias beyond the principles of bias of the UoC, it is recommended that persons who belong to the same university as the applicant or who were involved in the habilitation procedure should not be appointed as reviewers.

The appointment committee reviews and evaluates the expert opinions received and decides on the ranking by secret vote on the basis of the expert opinions, the application documents and the personal presentation. As a rule, the list should contain three individual proposals (requirement of a list of three, § 38 para. 3 sentence 1 HG). The procedure must be documented. The committee submits its appointment proposal together with its final report with the written laudations to the Inner Faculty for resolution.

Once the list has been adopted by the committee, the opinion of the Central Gender Equality Officer is obtained in accordance with Section 18 (2) LGG NRW. If she has no objections to the procedure, the Dean's Office forwards her statement to the Closer Faculty, the Senate and the Rectorate. If the Central Equal Opportunities Officer raises objections, the faculty management decides together with the chair of the appointment committee on the further procedure (e.g. re-examination of the assessment of the quality criteria applied with regard to the points of criticism raised, obtaining further expert opinions, requesting additional documents from the candidates).