Academic / Researcher
What do academics and researchers do?
Those who work in research dedicate their professional life to the search for new knowledge. They work in different disciplines, such as biology, chemistry, physics, social sciences and engineering. This may involve them working at universities, at higher education institutions, in or in business.
What does research involve?
Formulating hypotheses, testing them via experiments, analysing data, documenting and publishing results – working in research includes a variety of activities. It often occurs in international teams – at universities and higher education institutions, in research institutes and companies.
The ‘’ issued by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research () distinguishes among three sectors: at around 63%, the majority of German personnel are employed in the business sector. In addition to this, there are 21% who conduct research at higher education institutions and almost 16% at non-university research institutions.
What is the difference between research, science and academia?
These terms are often used synonymously. Albeit that's not quite correct. are superordinate terms – not all academics and scientists also conduct research – many work in a theoretical manner, many teach and thus work in the domain of education, others are advisors or organisers.
The research work environment
Working in is frequently project-based and financed by . In Germany, this originates on behalf of the federal government from programmes run by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), on top of which there are funding programmes specific to the federal states.