The number of professors at private universities in Germany has increased by a factor of 20 between 1995 and 2020 - to 3,300. A new research project led by Oldenburg organisational researcher Prof. Dr Heinke Röbken is now investigating the role and working conditions of these university lecturers. The joint project entitled "Professors at private universities: Working conditions, role constellations and commitment in teaching, research and administration" (ProPriHo) is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with a total of 321,000 euros over a period of three years.

In addition to Röbken, organisational researcher Prof. Dr Marcel Schütz from the NBS Northern Business School Hamburg and educationalist and psychologist Prof. Dr Petra Buchwald from the University of Wuppertal are also involved.

Röbken's project group is investigating how professors at private universities perceive their role and how they deal with potential role conflicts. The focus is also on the question of how possible dependencies, their working conditions and non-academic activities influence their work. The study will focus on temporary and part-time university lecturers.

The research group will initially conduct a number of hypothesis-based qualitative interviews before developing a questionnaire that will be sent to all professors at all private universities in Germany. The group also plans to conduct interviews with part-time professors in order to conduct qualitative research into their specific working conditions.

The project is part of the BMBF's "Non-state universities" funding line, which comprises a total of 21 sub-projects. The aim of the funded research projects is to investigate academic teaching, research and administration at private universities with the help of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary projects.

Weblinks

• www.wihoforschung.de/wihoforschung/de/bmbf-projektfoerderung/foerderlinien/forschung-ueber-nicht-staatliche-hochschulen/propriho/propriho.html
• uol.de/paedagogik/bildungsmanagement/research