Postdoctoral training offers many options in terms of professionale qualification and development. Click here for information about the habilitation procedure as well as how to fund your research.

enlarge the image: The members of the working group sit at tables in the foyer and work. Photo: Stephan Flad
Postdocs and doctoral students in a common scientific exchange. Photo: Stephand Flad

Research funding and funding opportunities

Your independent career as a researcher will be heavily dependent on the acquisition of external funding. Different organisations offer funding for your own position or scholarships for your early career research group or other employees, as well as grants for material and travel expenses. The research service of the University advises you on potential funding sources and their respective regulations, on open calls for proposals and internal support possibilities. It can also help you to write your proposal.

Further information.

Initial Funding: Leipzig Flexible Fund

The Leipzig Flexible Fund provides postdoctoral researchers (including junior professors on fixed-term contracts) with funding for preparatory activities for their own external funding application.

Further Information

Funding your own position

Based on your current career phase, the University of Leipzig will advise you on specific external funding programmes run by various national and international funding bodies.

Further information on funding your own position

Junior Research Groups

Programmes for junior research groups offer young academics a high level of financial support in order to establish and lead their own research group

Further Information on funding programmes.

  • Re-entry scholarships for Women planning their habiliatation
    So-called re-entry scholarships are available for female academics who already hold a doctorate and, after working in a professional environment outside of academia, wish to resume their scholarly work at Leipzig University. The funding is designed to help them prepare for their habilitation.
  • Re-entry scholarships for Completing a Habilitation
    Postdoctoral researchers who interrupted their academic career at a higher education institution in the Free State of Saxony at an advanced stage due to family commitments can apply for a scholarship to help them finish their habilitation project.

Further information in re-entry scholarships.

You can hold a PostDoc position at the Leipzig Institute of Meteorology in one of our research projects. The funding period in the projects is usually 3 years.

Apply for open positions at the Leipzig Institute of Meteorology.

Habilitate at the Faculty of Physics and Earth System Sciences

Habilitation formally establishes the qualification for independent research and teaching in a given field, conferring a postdoctoral teaching qualification in that subject. In many disciplines it is still the primary route to a full professorship.

  • The Faculty Council of the Faculty of Physics and Earth Sciences is responsible for the implementation of the habilitation procedure.
  • A habilitation board is appointed by the faculty council for the implementation of the individual habilitation procedure
  • The Faculty of Physics and Earth System Sciences of the University of Leipzig awards the degree of doctor habilitatus on the basis of a habilitation procedure in the name of the University of Leipzig. It is awarded as an addition to the previously acquired doctoral degree with the title doctor rerum naturalium habilitatus (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) or doctor philosophiae habilitatus (Dr. phil. habil.) or in corresponding combination with a previously acquired doctoral degree.
  • If the habilitated person undertakes to give lectures, usually at the university, he/she shall be entitled to add the suffix "PD" (Privatdozent) to the doctoral degree.

Admission to the habilitation procedure may be granted to anyone who

  • has obtained a doctoral degree from a German university or an equivalent university or an equivalent academic degree from a foreign academic university which is associated with the subject of the planned habilitation,
  • has achieved special scientific achievements in the subject or subject area for which the habilitation is pursued by working for several years after the doctorate, and has experience in the field of teaching;
  • submits a habilitation thesis or, as proof of equivalent scientific achievements, a selection of publications with a summary discussion (cumulative habilitation thesis) in accordance with § 6 HO;
  • submits a list of scientific publications and copies of essential papers;
  • has definitively failed a habilitation procedure in the same subject area and is not in an incomplete habilitation procedure concerning the same doctoral degree.

Habilitation's thesis at the Leipzig Institute for Meteorology

Dr. Matthias Tesche (2020)
Beyond optical profiling - Innovative use of the lidar techniquein atmospheric research
PDF 2 MB

Dr. Ina Tegen 2009
Soil Dust Aerosol and Climate

Dr. Uwe Schlink (2003)
Longitudinal Models in Biometeorology: Effect Assessment and Forecasting of Ground-level Ozone

Dr. Manfred Wendisch (2003)
Absorption of Solar Radiation in the Cloudless and Cloudy Atmosphere

Dr. Uwe Harlander (2002)
On Rossby wave propagation in atmosphere and ocean

Dr. Christoph Jacobi (2000)
Midlatitude mesopause region dynamics and its coupling with lower and middle atmospheric processes

Dr. Nicole Mölders (1999)
Einfache und akkumulierte Landnutzungsänderungen und ihre Auswirkungen auf Evapotranspiration, Wolken- und Niederschlagsbildung

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