Endowed professorship
An endowed professorship is a professorship that is not or not exclusively paid for from the basic budget of a university , but is financed in whole or in part by a third-party provider . Endowed professorships are sometimes donated by foundations such as the Volkswagen Foundation , the Stifterverband für die Deutschen Wissenschaft or companies. In Germany, these professorships are usually limited in time, usually for five years. In many cases, however, it is stipulated that the university must then take over the financing of the position itself.
Professorships at universities
According to the Stifterverband, endowed professorships have become an indispensable part of the German university landscape. The number of currently more than 800 funded chairs at colleges and universities has remained constant since 2016. Of these, 488 professorships were funded by business and 318 by foundations. The majority of them deal with business and industry. Companies are the most important sponsors. They alone finance around 60 percent of the endowed professorships. The appointment procedure for endowed professorships can differ considerably from the usual procedure; for example, a public tender can be dispensed with.
Although foundations, associations or individuals can set up an endowed professorship, the areas of health, oncology and nursing are currently only sparsely represented. In order to improve self-help with cancer, which has been promoted for decades, the German Cancer Aid established the first endowed professorship in self-help research in Germany at the Freiburg University Medical Center in 2019 and made around 1.1 million euros in donations available for five years. According to the initiators, the aim is to build up high-quality self-help research and to strengthen the networking of self-help with the institutions of the professional medical care system in the interests of the sick. The oncologist Joachim Weis was appointed to the chair .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Endowed professorships in Germany . Retrieved February 6, 2019.
- ↑ https://www.krebshilfe.de/informieren/presse/pressemitteilungen/aktuelle-meldung/stiftungsprofessur-selbsthilfe-im-fokus/ , accessed on February 6, 2019