(1) The title “adjunct professor” may be awarded to members of the Faculty of Medicine in accordance with § 41 HG who fulfill the requirements for appointment as a professor in accordance with § 36 HG and who perform outstandingly in research and teaching.

(2) The award requires a successful, independent and regular teaching activity of usually five years after the requirements for appointment according to § 36 HG have been met. The award is not a standard consequence of the habilitation.

The five-year period may be waived in the case of outstanding achievements. These may have been achieved in both research and teaching and must be justified in terms of quality and quantity. However, the duration of the teaching activity may under no circumstances be less than three years. The teaching activity may have been carried out at the University of Cologne or at other universities.

3) Outstanding independent research and teaching achievements in a subject area are deemed to exist if they fulfill the above-average recruitment requirements for professors in accordance with § 36 HG. The Dean's Office shall decide whether outstanding or exceptional performance in research and teaching has been achieved on the basis of the recommendations of the Junior Faculty Commission, three external expert opinions and the narrow faculty, which provide information on the performance achieved in research and teaching.

(4) If the applicant has received an appointment to a W2 or W3 professorship, the Dean may grant the extraordinary professorship prematurely to defend against the appointment. The Dean's Office shall decide on this after prior examination by the Junior Researcher Commission.

5) The title "adjunct professor" may not be awarded more than once or in addition to a corresponding official title or other corresponding title. The award of the title "Associate Professor" does not constitute an employment relationship or entitlement to the transfer of an office.

(6) The award of the title "adjunct professor" confers the legal status of a member of the University of Cologne within the meaning of Section 9 (1) sentence 1 HG. Insofar as adjunct professors are not also members of the university for other reasons, they do not participate in elections in accordance with § 9 para. 1 sentence 4 HG.

(1) The application for the award of the title “Associate Professor” must be submitted by the applicant in person in writing or electronically and addressed to the Dean.

(2) The following documents must be submitted with the application:

General documents:
a) A copy of the habilitation certificate including venia legendi or proof of habilitation-equivalent achievements.
b) A curriculum vitae with a report on the activities and achievements in research and teaching to date and the further professional career after the habilitation.

Science and publications:
c) A scientific career with a list of scientific papers published after the habilitation in the following structure and using the internationally used abbreviated journal references (see Index medicus) and stating the journal's impact factor at the time of application:
(i) original publications (with specimen copies; papers in journals listed in the medical literature databases Medline or Web of Science).

In general, at least 10 original publications must be submitted 5 years after the habilitation, at least 5 of them as first or last author. In the case of shared first or last authorship, the procedure is as follows: If the work was published in a journal that belongs to the top 10% of journals in the relevant subject according to the ISI Web of Science, the shared authorship is counted in full, otherwise this work only counts according to the number of shared authorships. The impact factor is calculated accordingly. Finally, a coherently developing scientific activity after the habilitation with the development of an independent research focus should be evident.
ii) Review articles/reviews
iii) Abstracts printed in journals
iv) Book contributions
v) Patents
vi) Scientific spin-offs
vii) Casuistics
viii) Awards or honors
ix) Scientific organization of a supra-regional congress, etc.
The impact factors for each publication and in total as well as the personal impact factor for the entire oeuvre and for the years under review must be enclosed.
d) Publications in electronic form

Teaching:
e) Proof of continuous outstanding independent teaching activity after habilitation or equivalent qualification with a list of personally conducted teaching hours;
f) Results of personal evaluations by students for one course per semester;
g) proof of further training in didactics;
h) Submission of a teaching concept agreed with the subject representative and the study commission and signed by the applicant, the subject representative and the chairperson of the study commission;
i) Declaration,
i) to consistently implement the teaching concept in the subsequent period,
ii) to fulfill the obligation to provide outstanding teaching services free of charge within the framework of the extraordinary professorship to the extent of at least 2 semester hours per week per academic year
iii) to be willing to participate as an examiner in the oral and practical university and state examinations
After the award of the adjunct professorship, the above-mentioned points on teaching must be documented once a year in a written or electronic report to the Dean of Studies.

Patient care:
j) In the case of clinical activities, declaration of willingness to cooperate closely with the Faculty of Medicine and the University Hospital of Cologne within the framework of patient care after appointment and to be involved in scientific projects in consultation with the subject representatives.

Third-party funding:
k) Structured proof of third-party funding obtained

Dissertations:
l) Proof of supervised dissertations

Other achievements:
m) Position on an appointment list
n) Representation of a chair
o) Special didactic achievements
p) (provisional) management of an institute, a clinic or an independent department
q) Outstanding clinical mastery of the subject area (proof by written recommendation from the subject representative)
r) Participation in supra-regional or multi-center studies
s) Teaching and research stays at foreign universities and institutions

Good scientific practice:
t) Declaration that ethical principles and the principles and recommendations for safeguarding good scientific practice have been observed in the scientific investigations carried out during the period under review and that these will also be observed in future scientific work
u) a police clearance certificate (document type O).

The prerequisite for the award of the title “Associate Professor” is both previous teaching activity and a concept for future teaching activity. Criteria for assessment in the application process include the type (e.g. teaching/learning formats), scope (number of teaching hours, semester hours per week if applicable) and quality (at least evaluation data and proof of further training in didactics) of teaching activities.

Therefore, the type and scope of previous teaching activities (e) must be clearly presented and evidence provided, as well as meaningful evaluation data (f) and evidence of further training (g) that allow conclusions to be drawn about the quality of teaching.

The teaching concept (h) must be presented clearly and comprehensibly. It must also indicate the type and scope of your own teaching activities planned for implementation and explain how the concept integrates into or complements the existing teaching of our faculty. When preparing your proposal, please refer to the criteria for a project outline in the context of calls for proposals for research projects or funding (e.g. objectives - target group - methods - results assurance/evaluation concept - concrete work plan).

Please make absolutely sure that you submit meaningful documents for each of the points § 2 para. 2 e-h, otherwise the application procedure will at least be delayed.

Please send the teaching concept agreed with the subject representative in advance by e-mail to studiendekanatuk-koeln.de for discussion in the Study Commission.

Please always include a description of your previous teaching activities and their evaluation in the e-mail, as the teaching concepts often cannot be conclusively assessed without this additional information (please note: we do not have access to the files that you may have already uploaded to the online 

(1) The Dean's Office shall check whether the submitted application documents are complete. If necessary, the Dean shall request missing documents, setting a reasonable deadline. The Dean shall reject the application if the documents remain incomplete after the deadline set has expired.

(2) After receipt of the complete application documents, the application and all documents shall be submitted to the Junior Researcher Commission. The Study Commission receives the documents on teaching in accordance with § 2 para. 2 e), f), g), h), and i) for submission of a statement to the Junior Researcher Commission and coordination of the prospective teaching concept. At the same time, the narrow faculty will be informed of the receipt of the application for the award of the title “Associate Professor”. On the basis of the documents submitted, the Junior Professors' Commission will check whether the applicant has made outstanding achievements in research and teaching. Based on the information provided, the Junior Professors' Commission also examines whether it can be expected that the applicant will be able to fulfill the obligation to provide outstanding research and teaching services in the future and whether the applicant is committed to the interests of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cologne, which arise from the inseparable connection between research, teaching and patient care (prognosis assessment).The Junior Researcher Commission prepares a report based on a sufficiently informed assessment and makes a recommendation on the opening of the procedure. This should include the result of the review and a proposal from three external reviewers to assess performance in research and teaching. The usual standards for appointment procedures are to be applied when selecting the reviewers.

(3) If, on the basis of its review, the Junior Researcher Commission comes to the conclusion that the criteria of Section 2 (2) have not been met, the Dean shall inform the applicant of this in writing. In this case, the applicant may inform the Dean in writing within four weeks of receipt of the letter that he/she is withdrawing the application before the decision to initiate the procedure is taken.

(1) Based on the report, the Junior Researcher Commission recommends the opening (or non-opening) of the procedure. In the positive case, the Dean shall inform the Closer Faculty of the opening of the procedure and inform them of the three external reviews in anonymized form. The Dean asks the Junior Researcher Commission to obtain the three reviews. After receipt of the reviews and completion of the deliberations by the Junior Researcher Commission, the Junior Researcher Commission will again submit a report to the Dean containing the results of the reviewed reviews and a recommendation. The Dean shall place the recommendation on the agenda of the next meeting of the Faculty.

(2) Every member of the Faculty has the right to inspect the application documents.

(3) Before the application is discussed at the meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Chair of the Junior Researcher Commission or his/her representative shall report on the result of the preliminary examination. The recommendation of the Junior Researcher Commission and the external reviews must be read out. The reading of an excerpt from a review is permitted if no member of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities objects and has had the opportunity to inspect the reviews beforehand.

(4) At the end of the consultation, the Narrow Faculty shall make a recommendation on the awarding of the title by a majority of the votes cast. The recommendation of the Narrow Faculty requires the approval of the majority of the professors belonging to the Narrow Faculty in order to be effective. If a decision is not reached in the third round of voting, the application is rejected. The vote shall take place in a closed meeting of the Faculty by secret ballot.

(5) The Dean's Office shall decide on the award of the title “Adjunct Professor” on the basis of the external reports, the recommendation of the Junior Professors' Committee and the recommendation of the Faculty of Deans.

(6) If the award of the title “Associate Professor” is rejected, the Dean shall inform the applicant in writing or electronically, stating the reason. The decision must be accompanied by information on legal remedies. A new procedure for the award of the title “Adjunct Professor” can only be discussed after the missing achievements have been completed, but after one year at the earliest. If additional achievements in teaching are to be proven, these must be demonstrated by further outstanding, evaluated teaching achievements over at least one year. A lack of outstanding achievements in research must be demonstrated by outstanding original scientific publications that were published after the rejection. A renewed rejection is final.

(7) The Dean shall notify the Rector of the Dean's Office's decision.

(8) The certificate of the award of the title “Associate Professor” shall be signed by the Dean. The appointment shall take place at the next meeting of the Faculty, after which the certificate shall be handed over.

(1) The right to use the title “Associate Professor” shall be suspended if the entitled person can use the title “Professor” for any other reason. In this case, the Faculty of Medicine must be informed of this.

(2) The award of the title “Associate Professor” shall be revoked if:

a) before reaching the age of 65, the obligation to provide outstanding teaching services amounting to at least two semester hours per week per academic year has not been fulfilled over a period of two academic years.

b) the requirements for the award were not met at the time of the award.

(3) The designation “Associate Professor” may be revoked in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act NRW (VwVfG NRW),

a) if it has been obtained through fraudulent misrepresentation, scientific misconduct, in particular in the event of violations of the rules of good scientific practice, if the reputation and trust which his/her position requires have been violated, if it has been obtained through threats or bribery or if it has been obtained through information which was incomplete or misleading in a material respect.

b) if the entitled person has violated the reputation or the trust that his or her position requires through his or her conduct.

(4) The designation “adjunct professor” may be withdrawn if there is a reason that would justify the withdrawal of the appointment in the case of a civil servant.

(5) The person concerned must be given the opportunity to comment before the decision to terminate, revoke or withdraw the award is made. The decision shall be made by the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Medicine. The decision will be communicated to the person concerned by the Dean in the form of a notification, which will include information on legal remedies. The Rector will be informed of this.

These regulations enter into force on the day after publication in the Official Notices. At the same time, the "Information Sheet for Applicants for the Award of the Title "Associate Professor"" of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cologne dated December 10, 2020 shall cease to be in force.

If the title “adjunct professor” was awarded before these regulations came into force, these regulations will take effect for the adjunct professor 6 months after the regulations come into force.

Issued on the basis of the resolution of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cologne dated 02.03.2022.

Cologne, 06.04.2022

The Dean

of the Faculty of Medicine

signed.

University Professor Dr. Gereon R. Fink