What is the title of your funded project?
ZAP.OTHR – Zukunft akademisches Personal OTH Regensburg
Who is involved in the project?
Vice President Prof. Dr. Carina Braun is responsible for the overall management of the project. Further information about the project is available on the ZAP.OTHR website.
What is your funded project about?
The project, funded under the federal-state programme “FH-Personal”, develops innovative solutions and sustainable measures for the recruitment and development of professorial staff. In doing so, it helps ensure the continued excellence and high quality of teaching and research at OTH Regensburg.
The project activities follow a consistent, integrated approach, ranging from expanding support for early-career academics and piloting new recruitment strategies to optimising appointment procedures, establishing a structured onboarding programme, and broadening professional development opportunities for professors.
In addition, one sub-project focuses on gaining insights into career pathways to a professorship, while another addresses the broader objective of increasing the visibility of OTH Regensburg as an attractive employer.
What excites you about the project?
The “FH-Personal” programme, jointly funded by Germany’s federal and state governments, supports 98 higher education institutions across Germany. It responds to demographic change—with many professors due to retire by 2030—and the resulting challenge faced by universities of applied sciences (HAWs) of having to fill or refill a large number of positions in the near future.
What makes ZAP.OTHR particularly exciting is that it does not address this challenge through isolated individual measures. Instead, it develops a comprehensive strategic approach encompassing employer branding, HR policy, and institutional development while raising awareness of a professorship at a university of applied sciences as an attractive career option.
How can the findings from the project be applied in practice?
One of the sub-projects investigates the career paths of professors at universities of applied sciences. In addition to conducting an extensive literature review, the project team interviewed HAW professors and carried out several online surveys.
The resulting findings have been published and presented at national and international conferences. They have also been directly applied in practice at OTH Regensburg and within the ZAP.OTHR project.
For example, the surveys showed that a professorship at a university of applied sciences as a career option, as well as the attractive professional development opportunities it offers, are still not widely known. These findings were put into practice by revising job advertisements and the “Jobs and Careers” section of the OTH Regensburg website, among other measures. The benefits associated with a professorship at a university of applied sciences were also redefined and presented more clearly, and related press articles were published.
Our website provides an overview of OTH Regensburg’s current funded projects.
