Key personnel at universities and higher education institutions

Working at a university after your studies: research associates assist professorships (glossary-internal link) and research groups at higher education institutions. Their duties include both research and teaching.

What does a research association involve?

What does a research association involve?

Within research (glossary-internal link)

• Research associates provide support to projects related to their research priority
• They conduct experiments
• They analyse data and publish the results

Within teaching

• Research associates give lectures at the university, for example
• They supervise seminars at an institute related to their discipline
• They mentor students in the context of their research association

Many also take on administrative tasks – organise conferences for example or apply for research funding (glossary-internal link). They can be employed at higher education institutions in Germany for up to 12 years.

How much salary does a research associate earn?

The salary varies depending on higher education institution, field of expertise and career stage. It is often based on the collective salary agreement for the public service sector in the federal states (TV-L). An entry-level salary would be around Salary group 13, Level 1 of the TV-L. That equates to a gross annual salary of around €44,000 to €50,000. A research associate’s salary can rise with increasing experience and responsibility.

Which degree certificate do research associates need for the job?

A completed university degree is obligatory, generally at least a master's degree, sometimes even a PhD (glossary-internal link). The future career path is either via an academic pathway to a PhD, habilitation (glossary-internal link) and professorship (glossary-internal link), or at non-university research institutions and in the private sector.

Work environment and challenges

Research association is frequently project-based and fixed-term, since it is often financed by third-party funds. In addition to their academic skills, research associates also need to be flexible, accept a certain degree of uncertainty regarding their career and usually be prepared to work fairly hard. The job does at the same time offer exciting opportunities to gain experience in your field of expertise and to make a meaningful contribution to academia.