Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is dedicated to continuously and sustainably improve its working conditions for young researchers.
JGU’s diverse cooperation schemes with the Max Planck Institutes in Mainz are one of the unique features of JGU’s profile reflected in, for instance, the jointly run Max Planck Graduate Center (MPGC). Moreover, the first institute jointly run by the Helmholtz Association and a university, the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM) is situated in Mainz as well as manifold national and international cooperation initiatives in the form of joint doctoral programs such as the German-French postgraduate programs in the humanities and social sciences and in medicine.
The Gutenberg Graduate School of the Humanities and Social Sciences (GSHS), the Graduate School TransMed (Mainz Research School of Translational Biomedicine), the small postgraduate research groups in the humanities and social sciences as well as numerous DFG Research Training Groups offer the perfect environment to pursue a doctorate. With the Cluster of Excellence PRISMA+ (Precision Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter) JGU was able to further strengthen its outstanding position.
These success stories are, among other aspects, the result of an expanding support structure. Along these lines JGU has developed interdisciplinary structured programs fore early career researchers addressing all relevant status groups as early as in the late 1990s. Based on these individual successful initiatives, an adapted overall structure for the miscellaneous support programs was needed, which would act as an integrating force and at the same time systemize the various support formats as well as make them visible. Since 2014, The Gutenberg Council for Young Researchers (GYR) has assumed this responsibility. The establishment of the GYR in addition to the Gutenberg Teaching Council (GTC) and the Gutenberg Research College (GRC) has allowed JGU to offer a complete and unique Council structure in Mainz. Moreover, it enabled JGU to implement another cornerstone of its institutional strategy (“future concept”) which received praise during the German Universities Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments.
In addition to the GYR’s foundation, JGU aims at perfecting its framework conditions for young researchers through its strategic human resources development, including but not limited to the development of a comprehensive JGU-Leadership culture, the audit procedure HR Excellence in Research and the introduction of tenure track options for junior professors. Remaining true to its motto Moving Minds – Crossing Boundaries, one of JGU’s primary objectives is to give fresh groundbreaking impetus to promoting young researchers and scholars. Due to this issue’s high priority the competent authority for support programs for young researchers within the university’s management is the President of JGU.