FAUnext career program

You can take part in the FAUnext program if you belong to one of the following groups:

• Junior professors (W1)
• FAU heads of junior research groups (FAUngl)
• Qualified postdoctoral researchers
• ETI-Grantees (FAUeti)
• Principal investigators, group leaders and project coordinators of Transregios, Collaborative Research Centers and Research Training Groups (TRRs, SFBs and GRKs) at FAU
• Project coordinators of the IZKF first-time applicant program

You don’t need to apply for the FAUnext program. If you belong to one of the target groups, you will automatically receive an invitation to participate. After that, you can start with the program at any time.

You can start with the program at any time after receiving the invitation to participate. The program begins with a voluntary individual self assessment. This comprises a self-reflection form, followed by a feedback session with our qualified coach. The results will help you to select the modules you need for your personal development from a range of modules on offer. After that, you can register for the modules. Keep in mind that your registration is binding.

FAUnext supports participants in all aspects of the PERO fields of action at FAU (People, Education, Research, Outreach). We offer up to two modules for each of these fields of action. Three extra modules are offered for “Professorship as a career goal”, “Negotiation skills” and “Career paths outside university”.

If you participate in the program, you are entitled to the following services, which you can access within two years:

• Participation in three modules of your choice. Each module consists of 16 working units of 60 minutes per unit.
• Participation in networking events and the FAUnext4all lunch talks
• Self-assessment questionnaire
• Feedback interview on the self-assessment questionnaire with qualified career coach to determine which modules are most suitable for you.
• Career coaching over 4-5 sessions of about 1.5 hours each within your two years of participation, delivered by our certified coach. You can arrange the dates individually with your coach.

In addition, the program is designed in such a way that enables you to make use of all services and to complete at least three modules within one year.

After completing the program, you will receive a certificate of attendance for the entire, two-year duration of your participation.

List of modules:

People

• Module P1: Developing your own style of management – Cultivating self-awareness
• Module P2: Developing your own style of management – Managing yourself and others

More information on People modules

Education

• Module E1: Advanced Higher Education – Focus on your own teaching
• Module E2: Advanced Higher Education – Focus on digital education

More information on Education modules

Research

• Module R1: Developing competitive third-party projects
• Module R2: Developing successful networks

More information on Research modules

Outreach

More information on Outreach module

Professorship as a career goal

Further information on the Professorship as a career goal module

Negotiation skills

More information on negotiation skills module

Career paths outside university module

Further information about the career paths outside university module

Career paths both inside as well as outside the academia are personal decisions and the best way to explore your various options is with individual coaching sessions. In our career coaching, we take a close look at your specific skills and motives and, if necessary, we work together to identify different options for you both within the university and elsewhere. Read more on our career coaching website

Networking events

To create spaces for collegial exchange and networking, we organize networking events at least twice a year for our program participants. We will inform you in advance via e-mail about the date, location, time and type of event.

FAUnext4all: Our lunch talks

In our FAUnext4all lunch talks we invite FAU “role models” and further guest speakers (established researchers, alumni of the FAUnext program, etc.) to hold short presentations on set topics and to share their experience with the participants of our program and further postdocs of the FAU. The lunch talks take place online and during the lunch break. You will receive a Zoom link via e-mail beforehand.

See all upcoming talks on the event website.

FAUnext group in the FAU Community

Participants and alumni of the FAUnext career program have the opportunity to join the FAUnext Community in the FAU Community Portal. Further information on FAU Community is available here: https://www.fau.de/alumni/fau-community-portal/

Active networking is an important aspect of our program and we hope to expand it even further in future. By using the FAU Community Portal, we would like to bring together current and former members of our program, including those who have left FAU during the last few years. The members of our FAUnext Community group can contact each other directly and thus create a useful and important supporting network for the present and the future.

In addition, we use the various channels of the FAU Community Portal for group-specific posts, events and notifications, enabling a direct flow of information between former and current FAUnext participants.

Further information on how to set up a new FAU Community profile is available here.

You can find our group here.