The Gutenberg Council for Academic Careers (GCC) advises the JGU Executive University Board on strategic issues and helps create optimal conditions for researchers and artists in the early stages of their careers. The body is composed of leading experts from various disciplines and at various levels of qualification at JGU. By involving outstanding researchers in university governance, the university benefits from the broad expertise of all members, who actively help shape the higher education institution.
To mark its 10th anniversary, the “Gutenberg Council for Young Researchers (GYR),” founded in 2014, was renamed the “Gutenberg Council for Academic Careers (GCC).” Along with the Gutenberg Research College (GRC) and the Gutenberg Teaching Council (GTC), the GCC is part of Mainz’s college structure.
The GCC is funded by the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative.
As a strategic advisory body to the university management board, the Gutenberg Council for Academic Careers (GCC) formulates recommendations for forward-looking improvements to research and working conditions for researchers and artists in the early stages of their careers at JGU.
The Gutenberg Council for Academic Careers (GCC) has received funding from the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative. These funds will be used to implement sustainable support measures for researchers and artists in the early stages of their careers.
At the annual DIES Academicus, JGU honors outstanding early-career researchers and talented artists who have received awards for their exceptional achievements. The event features awards presented by external companies, funding organizations, and foundations, as well as awards from JGU’s trust foundations.
The GCC has developed guiding principles for JGU that outline the university’s approach to working with its young researchers. The principles, adopted by the University Senate in 2018, provide employees with practical guidance for their day-to-day work and research activities.
To support and promote early academic independence, the GCC has recommended granting externally evaluated early-career group heads the opportunity to independently and autonomously supervise and evaluate the doctoral and master’s theses of the employees they mentor. This recommendation was endorsed by the University Senate in 2016.
To implement the requirements of the University Act, the GCC proposed quality standards for doctoral programs at JGU in 2021. Some of these were incorporated into the quality assurance plan for the approval of JGU’s regulations and procedures governing the doctorate and habilitation.
The GCC has developed a comprehensive plan for a graduate program in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences at JGU. On December 3, 2020, the “Graduate School of the Humanities and Social Sciences (GSHS)” was officially inaugurated.
Darauf aufbauend war das GKK bei der Entwicklung des Konzepts für eine fachübergreifende Graduierteneinrichtung beteiligt, die am 29. April 2025 als “Gutenberg Academy (GA)” feierlich eröffnet wurde. Die Gutenberg Academy fungiert als zentrale Anlaufstelle für Early Career Researchers an der JGU. Damit übernimmt sie z.B. im Bereich des Informationsmanagements auch Aufgaben, die zuvor vom GKK geleistet worden waren.
As early as 2017, the GCC advocated for recognizing JGU doctoral candidates as a distinct group in the University Act. In doing so, it sought to take into account the wide variety of academic cultures and individual paths to the doctorate.
The University Act now provides for a doctoral student council, which was established at JGU in 2022. Since then, the GCC has been supporting the doctoral student council with administrative matters.
The purpose of advising agreements is to establish an individualized, transparent, and reliable foundation for collaboration during the doctoral phase for both doctoral candidates and supervisors. Discussing mutual expectations and jointly developing a mutually agreed-upon agreement helps prevent disappointment and avoid misunderstandings on both sides of the supervisory relationship.
In 2017, the JGU University Senate recommended that all departments, schools, and higher education institutions enter into a written advising agreement for doctoral projects and follow the (guiding) principles developed by the GCC.
Section 34(5) of the University Act now requires that a written advising agreement be entered into between the doctoral candidate and the supervisor within a reasonable period of time (maximum 6 months) after acceptance into the doctorate program.
Since 2022, the key provisions of this advising agreement have been mandated by JGU’s quality assurance concept for the approval of regulations and procedures governing the doctorate and the habilitation. The GCC (Guiding) Principles and the GCC template for the advising agreement have therefore been updated accordingly. Fortunately, the advising agreements of many faculties are based on this template.
With the event“10 Years of GYR—Making Good Supervision Even Better!”, the GCC gave supervisors and doctoral candidates at JGU the opportunity to discuss the changing role of supervisors and institutional support options. A unique feature of the event was that it approached the topic primarily from the perspective of dedicated supervisors.
Das GKK hat – unter anderem auf der Basis von strukturierten Gesprächen mit 26 Betreuenden der JGU – eine Empfehlung für Promotionen an der JGU erarbeitet, die sowohl Leitlinien für Gute Betreuung als auch Vorschläge für entsprechende Maßnahmen beinhaltet; sie wurde 2026 an das Präsidium überreicht.
As part of a GCC pilot project from 2016 to 2020, support services were developed for supervisors —such as guidelines for career discussions with postdocs.
To improve research and working conditions for employees with a doctoral degree at JGU, the GCC conducted a survey of this group in 2022 with the support of the Center for Quality Assurance and Development (ZQ). Based on the results, which were presented internally at JGU, the GCC formulated recommendations for the Executive University Board.
To support the career orientation of postdoctoral candidates, the GCC funded the pilot project“Career Prospects for Postdocs” from 2016 through the end of 2020. The goal was to develop a target-group-specific portfolio of information, advising, and coaching servicesthat combines existing and new offerings. In addition to academic career options, the project also explored alternative career paths. Key components of the program were integrated into JGU’s Human Resources Development offerings after the project concluded.
Since its inception, the GCC has consistently focused on the diversity of academic career paths, while also examining non-academic career paths and the mobility between the two spheres. It supports the Executive University Board in developing concepts for academic career paths that align with JGU’s profile and are also attractive to the target group of researchers and artists in the early stages of their careers.
In 2015, the GCC issued recommendations for a tenure track professorship.
Through a pilot project, the GCC provided funding for individual career counseling for doctoral candidates and postdocs from 2016 to 2020.
From 2019 to 2021, the GCC sponsored two event series that provided information on various career paths for individuals with a doctoral degree, thereby supporting targeted career planning. Topics included science management, career development for life scientists, starting a business and self-employment, and literary outreach.
In 2021, the GCC issued a call for proposals inviting faculties and institutes to organize events or event series for upper-level undergraduate students and doctoral candidates in the early stages of their doctoral studies, with the aim of promoting a professorship as a career path.
The GCC is currently engaged in the ongoing discussion regarding new job profiles for academic careers and tenured positions beyond the professorship.
Gemeinsam mit zentralen Akteuren der JGU hat das GKK Vorschläge für Maßnahmen, die mittel- bis langfristig familiäre Belange mit den Anforderungen aus dem Lehr- und Forschungsalltag besser miteinander in Einklang bringen können, erarbeitet und 2026 an das Präsidium übergeben. Hierzu stehen wir in Kontakt mit den Familien-Servicebüros auf dem Campus und in der Universitätsmedizin und beraten das Präsidium hinsichtlich der Weiterentwicklung und Optimierung von Unterstützungs- und Fördermaßnahmen.
Through its so-called “Mini-Graduate Colleges” (MGRK), the GCC has been successfully working for several years to establish sustainable structures for granting support to early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The goal is to identify promising research approaches at JGU, support promising collaborations, and provide doctoral candidates with favorable conditions for their research projects. To date, 16 mini-Research Training Groups have been approved, with total funding of over 4.2 million euros (as of January 2025).
During the current funding period (2024–2027), four mini-research training groups will receive a total of 1.3 million euros in funding.
Precise measurement is a hallmark of empirical scientific practice. Inspired by economics’ strong emphasis on individual choice behavior as its primary subject of investigation, recent years have seen rapid developments in the design and application of novel measurement protocols based on experimental economic methods, which capture differences in individual characteristics and are applied to better understand differences in economically relevant domains.
As an apparently independent development, quantitative social science research—and economics in particular—has now widely adopted the experimental approach for identifying causal effects. In recent years, experimentation has also increasingly moved beyond the laboratory and is regularly applied in field settings, having become a common tool for evaluating policy and understanding the behavior of individuals, firms, and organizations.
While randomized experiments have traditionally focused on estimating average treatment effects, attention is now shifting toward analyzing their heterogeneity as well. This is particularly relevant for applying research findings to practice, as it allows programs to be tailored to individual characteristics and helps overcome “one-size-fits-all” approaches.
By launching this graduate group, we aim to lay the groundwork for building and institutionalizing an active community of young researchers, systematically fostering and advancing the development and use of behavioral measurement tools and their application to field experiments in empirical social science research. Notably, the group will not only focus on the application of these two methodological paradigms in isolation but will also leverage their synergies: If behavioral measures are helpful in detecting individual heterogeneity, incorporating them into randomized controlled trials in the field represents a promising approach for systematically analyzing systematic heterogeneity in treatment effects.
The Mini-Graduate Research Training Program aims to explore the fluid and heterogeneous genre of the symphonic poem from multiple cultural-historical perspectives. To do justice to the diversity of the genre and to go beyond the examination of individual composers’ works, intra- and interdisciplinary approaches will be used to examine various subject categories, attitudes toward reception, and compositional styles—among other aspects—with a focus on their cultural interpretation throughout the “long 19th century.”
To this end, it is necessary to reexamine existing knowledge of the genre through new hermeneutic approaches by focusing on three sets of questions: First, we will examine how conceptions of the “content” of music—which were major points of contention in musical aesthetics and theory, particularly in the first half of the 20th century—are reflected in compositional aesthetics within the context of the genre.
Second, it is important to discuss questions of subject selection in a manner analogous to established scholarship on 19th-century opera, thereby examining the relationship between the symphonic poem and other genres.
Third, the genre should be contextualized as part of the formation of national identity patterns—a process that often extends far into cultural production—and thus examined, by interweaving cultural-historical perspectives with those of compositional practice, to determine the extent to which national identities also manifest themselves in terms of compositional technique and aesthetics.
The interdisciplinary exchange between Musicology and Music Theory is particularly well-suited to addressing these questions; for it is only through interdisciplinary dialogue that questions regarding cultural and compositional practices can be examined within the context of the narrative structure of musical works. To this end, a multidimensional mentoring concept has been developed, which will also be tested for its transferability to other subjects.
The MGRK conducts diachronic research on case studies from a historical-materialist perspective, examining diversity and social boundaries in cities and metropolises from antiquity through the 19th century. The starting point for this research is the observation that, in various historical contexts, key moments can be identified in which previously latent or implicit potentials for differentiation within urban societies either intensify, consolidate, or dissolve again, such that they become visible and articulable both to the norm-setting instances in the urban space and to the actors themselves.
Approaching these issues through the lens of “otherness” or “being an outsider” opens up comparative perspectives and creates space for a comprehensive discussion of these factors from a multidisciplinary perspective: Together, we explore the dynamics, catalysts, paces, and tipping points of the differentiation processes at work here, as well as the written and material traces these constellations have left behind.
The MGRK explores the connections between Ecology and aesthetics from 1750 to 1850, by analyzing ecological issues within aesthetic contexts, before the divide between different scientific cultures became pronounced in the 19th century and the term “Ecology” was defined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. The goal is to highlight the significance of the aesthetic in the emergence of a diversity of Ecologies around 1800. The arts around 1800 sought to raise awareness of the interactions between culture and nature in the environment, social relationships, and human subjectivity. The arts foster an understanding in which nature becomes a space for aesthetic experience and the intertwining of humanity and nature becomes visible.
Thus, the musical aesthetics of the time reflect perspectives that unite all things in the world in the sense of a symphonic “sound of the world,” while the listening self dissolves into these sounds. In the visual arts, landscape painting emerges as the new dominant genre. Literary Romanticism also emerges as a complex field of aesthetic experimentation. While British Studies focus on reactions to the Industrial Revolution—which gave rise to artistic positions ranging from nostalgia to class struggle—German studies center on an engagement with the philosophy of nature inherent in German Idealism. Through a poeticization of the sciences, this transforms traditional macrocosm-microcosm relationships into more-than-human interrelationships between the inorganic and the organic.
Within the framework of the MGRK, the ecological dimensions of the concept of landscape—which is equally prevalent in literature, the visual arts, and music—are thus highlighted, and the associated reflections on the crises of modernity around 1800, as well as the increasingly precarious relationship between humans and the environment, are examined. Through the interdisciplinary integration of arts, literature, and Musicology using the methods of ecocriticism, the planned project aims to establish a research platform for Environmental Humanities at JGU, which will be linked to existing initiatives and serve as a contribution to the JGU initiative “Sustainability and Sustainable Development.”
Educational Processes in University Teaching That Challenges Discrimination
Principal Investigator: Assistant Professor Dr. Constantin Wagner
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Karin Bräu, Prof. Dr. Alexandra Klein, Prof. Dr. Carmen Mörsch
The Digital Information Landscape and Its Impact on Students’ Online Learning – A Cross-Domain Analysis in Medicine and Economics (DIAPSON)
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaja
Co-investigators: Prof. Dr. Mita Barnjee, Prof. Dr. Walter Bisang, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Marcus Maurer, Prof. Dr. Christian Schemer, Prof. Dr. Jochen Roeper
Resilient Institutions
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Claudia Landwehr
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Kai Arzheimer, Prof. Dr. Phillip Harms, Prof. Dr. Sascha Huber, Prof. Dr. Otte Gunnar
Simply Complex! A Multimodal and Interdisciplinary Approach to Studying Linguistic Complexity in Plain Language
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Arne Nagels
Co-investigators: Prof. Dr. Silvia Hansen-Schirra, Prof. Dr. Walter Bisang
Contemporary Ethnographies of the Self: Optimizations—Sacralizations—Standardizations
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Barbara Thums
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Michael Roth, Assistant Professor Dr. Mirko Uhlig
Testimony: Episemes of a Media and Cultural Practice
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Alexandra Schneider
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Friedemann Kreuder, Assistant Professor Dr. Kristina Köhler, Prof. Dr. Gabriele Schabacher, Assistant Professor Dr. Sarah Scholl-Schneider, Prof. Dr. Michael Simon, Assistant Prof.-Prof. Dr. Julia Stenzel, Assistant Prof. Dr. Mirko Uhlig, Assistant Prof. Dr. Benjamin Wihstutz
The Dimensions of Time in the Foundations of Ethics
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Ruben Zimmermann
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, PD Dr. Dorothea Erbele-Küster
Dynamics of Workload and Stress
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Christian Dormann
Co-Investigators: Assistant Professor Dr. Verena Haun, Prof. Dr. Thomas Rigotti, Prof. Dr. Klaus Wälde
Integrated Classroom Research in Subject Didactics and Educational Sciences
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Margarete Imhof
Co-investigators: Prof. Dr. Daniel Dreesmann, Prof. Dr. Oliver Meyer, Prof. Dr. Sylvia Thiele
Materiality and Sociality in Culture and Society
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Herbert Kalthoff
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Jörg Rogge, Prof. Dr. Gregor Wedekind
Life in Transitions: Young Adults Between Continuity and Discontinuity in Education, Career, and Family
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Heide von Felden
Co-investigators: Prof. Dr. Marina Hennig, Prof. Dr. Peter Preisendörfer, Prof. Dr. Stefan Weyers
Politics of Linguistics, Translation Studies, and Cultural Studies
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Dilek Dizdar
Co-Investigators: Prof. Dr. Andreas Gipper, Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Kelletat, Prof. Dr. Birgit Menzel, Prof. Dr. Michael Schreiber
At the annual DIES Academicus, JGU honors outstanding early-career researchers and talented artists who have received awards for their exceptional achievements. The GCC has organized the event since 2017.
At DIES Academicus, awards are presented by external companies, funding organizations, and foundations, as well as honors from JGU’s endowment foundations.
The next DIES Academicus will take place on July 6, 2027, at the Alte Mensa.
Each year, on the occasion of DIES Academicus, the brochure “Directory of Outstanding Achievements” is published, in which the award recipients are introduced to the public with a brief profile.
The Gutenberg Council for Academic Careers (GCC) is led by an interdisciplinary executive committee. The body is composed of members of JGU who have distinguished themselves through exceptional dedication and outstanding achievements in granting grants to researchers and artists in the early stages of their careers. In addition to professors, the body includes other researchers from various faculties and at different stages of their careers, ranging from students pursuing a doctorate to advanced postdoctoral researchers. The body is further complemented by outstanding students.
Das Leitungsgremium des GKK wird vom Präsidium der JGU im Einvernehmen mit dem Senat bestellt. Aus seiner Mitte wählt das Leitungsgremium eine Direktorin bzw. einen Direktor sowie eine Stellvertreterin bzw. einen Stellvertreter aus der Gruppe der Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer, die das Gremium nach außen vertreten.
Der Vizepräsident für Forschung und wissenschaftliche Karrierewege nimmt beratend an den Sitzungen des Leitungsgremiums teil.
The GCC is supported by an administrative office in carrying out its duties.
Director: Prof . Dr. med. Julia Weinmann-Menke, Department 04, University Medical Center (will be working primarily at Heidelberg University beginning in the summer semester of 2026; the deputy director is currently handling official duties)
Deputy Director: Prof. Dr. Florian Hett, Department 03, Professor of Digital Economics
“I very much welcome the establishment of the GCC. New, inspiring approaches are important so that we can continue to motivate a sufficient number of young people to pursue a career in science in the future. I would like to contribute to this effort.”
“The complex demands placed on young researchers call for a framework that specifically supports their development. At the same time, it is essential to ensure that the university fulfills its societal responsibilities to the highest standards. At the GCC, I would like to help create an environment that takes both of these into account: providing the best possible support for young researchers and strengthening the university through excellence in research and teaching.”
“I consider the deliberate shaping and development of opportunities and conditions for so-called young researchers at a university to be a task of great relevance regarding higher education policy. I am therefore all the more pleased to be able to actively contribute to this task through my work on the GCC’s executive committee.”
“Interdisciplinary and intergenerational exchange is of the utmost importance for shaping the future of young researchers.
As a doctoral candidate at the University of Mainz, I am delighted to be able to contribute to this effort together with the members of the executive committee.”
“For me, the ideal university is a living community where different generations come together and contribute their respective experiences and perspectives to the daily routine of learning, teaching, and research. The GCC helps ensure that this aspect is not lost sight of at JGU.”
“Modern research is characterized by an increasingly broad range of scientific methodologies. Promoting interdisciplinary collaboration among young scientists fosters enthusiasm, the exchange of ideas, and the quality of science and medicine. I work toward establishing these structures within the framework of new family and work models. As of the summer semester of 2026, I have moved to Heidelberg University and am now only working at JGU on a limited basis.”
“I very much welcome the establishment of the GCC. New, inspiring approaches are important so that we can continue to motivate a sufficient number of young people to pursue a career in science in the future. I would like to contribute to this effort.”
“When it comes to the promotion of young researchers, it’s also important to incorporate students’ perspectives—both as future researchers and as current members of the university community. That’s why I’m looking forward to contributing my experiences and perspectives from my current program of study in Mainz and Oxford, and I’m always open to suggestions from the student body.”
“Based on various personal experiences during the early stages of my doctoral studies, I developed a desire to get involved in higher education policy. The (structural) barriers here need to be reduced, especially for those with children or without funding. As a representative of the doctoral student body, I would like to bring their perspective to the committee’s work.”
“My goal is to help create conditions in which as many talented and motivated early-career scholars as possible receive adequate grants and long-term prospects in academia. This benefits both the individual and the system.”
“As a member of the GCC body at JGU Mainz, I appreciate the opportunity to play an active role in shaping the conditions and opportunities for emerging researchers. This active involvement allows me to make a meaningful contribution to the goal of promoting and mentoring young research talents regarding higher education policy.”
“The dynamic evolution of training for young researchers is an ongoing challenge to which the GCC must respond with appropriate supervision and support measures. I hope we can achieve this in such a way that doctoral candidates and postdocs can ideally combine their enthusiasm for science with a growing sense of independence and confidence in the feasibility of various career paths. This also benefits the scientific community as a whole.”
“For me, the GCC is an important body for helping to shape scientific training. By representing various subjects and groups at JGU, it skillfully leverages the strengths of a campus-based university.
As a doctoral candidate in computer science with a fellowship, I am delighted to be able to contribute my perspective as a member of JGU’s next generation of researchers.”
“The phase during which one is considered a ‘young researcher’ is perhaps the most creative and the most important phase for one’s future career, even if it is accompanied by professional uncertainty. I consider creating optimal conditions for young researchers within this context to be an important mission of the Gutenberg Council for Young Researchers.”
Address:
Philosophicum II
Jakob Welder-Weg 20
55128 Mainz
