After the resignation of the former President of the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU), Sabine Kunst, the Vice President of the HU, Ludwig Kronthaler, also resigned his office at the weekend.

Both justified their withdrawal with a protest against a provision of the Berlin Higher Education Act, according to which permanent positions must be created for postdocs who qualify for a professorship.

For 25 years he has been committed to improving the framework conditions for science, "I don't want to have to participate in the implementation of deterioration now," said Kronthaler.

The newly elected President of the HU, Julia von Blumenthal, had regretted Kronthaler's departure.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

  • Follow I follow

The tenure of the postdocs has created such uncertainty in the Berlin University Alliance's Excellence Network that dozens of staff positions can no longer be filled.

"Science in Berlin was paralyzed for months," said the science policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives, Adrian Grasse.

Together with the FDP, the CDU had initiated a norm control procedure that is to be initiated after Easter.

Because the law is not constitutional, the legislative competence lies with the federal government, which has already made use of its right with the Science Time Contract Act.

The legal representative is the legal scholar Matthias Ruffert at the HU.

On the initiative of the CDU parliamentary group, a hearing of the science committee took place on Monday, at which the Cologne legal scholar Christian von Coelln also described the Berlin regulation as "void".

He recalled the most recent constitutional court rulings, in which a basic fluctuation of scientific staff was declared as part of academic freedom.

The President of the German Rectors' Conference, Peter-André Alt, called for a sensible framework from the legislature, which would then have to be designed through university contracts.

Alt said that so-called postdocs must be honestly told what chances they have.

He thinks a three-year initial contract for postdocs makes sense.

After that, leaving is possible, a postdoc tenure model or a tenure track professorship.