The focus of the project is an explorative analysis of the social background of professors at Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) in Germany. The professors’ social background is analysed by the educational level of the parents. Professors at German UASs must prove that they have at least three years of extra-curricular work experience before they can be appointed to a professorship, so the research topic also touches aspects of the economic system and the world of work as well as career paths outside the German higher education system. The focus will be on individual career decisions and their influencing factors in two comparison groups of professors distinguished by their social background. Another emphasis of the analysis is on subject-specific differences in the social background of UAS professors.
The empirical study is based on a secondary analysis of the data from the BeFHPro-project The Situation of Candidate Pools for Professorships at Universities of Applied Sciences (May 2016 - July 2017). In this project newly appointed professors took part in a survey and their CVs were analysed.
In addition, problem-centred biographical interviews will be conducted with newly appointed professors at German UASs.