Habilitation Guidelines

1. Legal basis

The habilitation procedure is based on the Universities Act 2002, as amended by the 2009 Amendment to the Universities Act, the Statutes of the University of Vienna (including the Affirmative Action Plan for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality) and the Guidelines for Senate Tasks in the Habilitation Procedure (PDF in German)) in the version dated 6 May 2021.

2. Admissibility check and requirements

The Dean or the head of the centre must check the application for admissibility (Section 4 (1) items (1) to (6)).
Before the faculty management can confirm admissibility, applicants for habilitation must hold an informational meeting with the relevant professors of the faculty as well as the heads of the institute/department. In this meeting, particular attention shall be given to the suitability of the habilitation thesis/research work and to the relevance of the applicant’s teaching activities in relation to the intended venia docendi. A prerequisite for granting teaching authorisation for an entire academic subject is evidence of outstanding academic qualifications in that subject, as well as repeated teaching experience at recognised post‑secondary educational institutions as proof of the applicant’s didactic abilities.
The commission and the reviewers will take into account all academic publications submitted by the applicant; however, the primary focus will be on the habilitation thesis.

3. Promoting the habilitation of women and avoiding gender bias

The faculty is committed to actively implementing the Affirmative Action Plan for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality, in particular § 54 ("Promotion of Women in Research") and § 38 ("Reviewers"). Particular care must be taken to ensure that at least 50% of the commission members are women. Any deviation from this requirement must be justified. It is recommended that the Equal Opportunities Working Party be notified if a 50% representation of women cannot be achieved for duly justified reasons.
A professionally adequate gender balance must also be ensured among the reviewers. If the proportion of women is below 50% (deviating from the Senate guideline), this deviation must likewise be justified.

4. Habilitation applicants without an employment relationship with the University of Vienna

Persons who are not employed by the University of Vienna but wish to obtain a habilitation in a subject represented at the faculty are advised to consult a representative of the faculty at the earliest possible stage. For female habilitation applicants, § 54(1) of the Affirmative Action Plan for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality applies. Mentoring for external habilitation applicants (female/male/diverse) includes providing information on the applicable legal framework and on subject‑specific academic conventions, particularly with regard to the formulation of the venia docendi and to expectations concerning publication and teaching activities. Mentoring does not entail the provision of resources for external applicants; in particular, it does not confer any entitlement to a teaching assignment. Acting as a mentor does not constitute grounds for bias within the meaning of § 7.

5. The habilitation thesis

The habilitation thesis must address a topic within the subject area for which the teaching qualification is being applied for.
It may consist either of a single scholarly monograph or of several thematically related academic publications (= cumulative habilitation thesis).
The habilitation thesis must deal with a topic different from that of the doctoral dissertation or demonstrate a clear scholarly continuation of it. In the latter case, the work must constitute a substantial qualitative and quantitative expansion of the dissertation in order to be recognised as an independent habilitation thesis. Publications that were already included in a cumulative dissertation may not be reused in a cumulative habilitation thesis.
The habilitation thesis must be methodologically sound, present original research findings, and demonstrate scholarly mastery of the habilitation subject as well as the candidate’s ability to advance research within the field.

5.1. Monographic habilitation thesis

At the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, this single scientific work is a monograph that is either available as a print-ready manuscript, has been published by a subject-specific relevant scientific publisher, or has been accepted for publication.

5.2. Cumulative habilitation thesis

The following requirements apply to cumulative habilitation theses:
The cumulative habilitation thesis must be titled, and the thematic (theoretical or methodological) connection between the collected publications must be explained in a comprehensive and substantial introduction that places the relevance and coherence of the individual works in a broader research context of the respective subject and is not merely a summary of the content. The number, scope and publication dates of the works collected for a cumulative habilitation thesis must be in proportion to the subject.
It is expected that these individual works have been published predominantly in publications relevant to the subject, taking into account the international perspective. Furthermore, a proportion of publications with peer review procedures in accordance with subject-specific conventions is expected. The type of peer review procedure must be specified in the application. A proportion of publications with peer review procedures in line with subject-specific practices is also expected. The type of peer review procedure must be specified in the application. Journals must be listed in Web of Science or Scopus; if this is not the case, applicants for habilitation must describe the respective quality assurance procedure in the application (e.g. by providing a link to the website of the publication). In the case of co-authored works, the applicant's own contribution must be clearly stated in order to prove eligibility. The total number of co-authored texts, their relation to independently authored works, and the respective number of co-authors involved must be based on subject-specific conventions. The subject-specific requirements must be observed when choosing the language of the monographic habilitation thesis and the individual works combined into a cumulative habilitation. The thematic introduction to a cumulative habilitation, on the other hand, must be in German or English.

6. Criteria for expert reports (including didactic expert reports)

Expert reports must make a clear recommendation for acceptance or rejection with regard to the venia docendi applied for, provide comprehensible reasons for this and present the criteria for the assessment in a transparent manner. In the case of cumulative habilitation theses, the reviewers are requested to explicitly address all of the above criteria for subject-specific adequacy (substantive introduction, publication organs, ratio of own contribution in co-authorships, time horizon of the published works).
In the absence of current student evaluations of courses held at the faculty (which must not be more than 6 semesters old, taking into account leave of absence), a public teaching demonstration must be held at the faculty in all cases. Irrespective of this, the commission may decide to hold a teaching demonstration.
In order to prepare the didactic assessment, the assessors must in any case either attend such a teaching demonstration or a meeting of a course held at the University of Vienna, or they should have attended such a course in the past; this also applies if student evaluations are available.
At least one of the didactic assessments must be written by a member of the student curia. The didactic reports must include teaching concepts, teaching experience and evaluations as an objective basis as broadly as possible.

7. Bias

7.1. Bias of members in habilitation commissions

In principle, the rules of the guidelines for Senate tasks in the habilitation procedure apply:
Commission members are considered to have a positive or negative bias in the following cases
a) if they regularly publish and/or collaborate on projects with the applicant
b) if they have a current or past close personal relationship (kinship, partnership, etc.) with the applicant. 
Upon agreeing to their nomination to the committee, committee members must declare their impartiality. This is noted by the Dean's Office on the survey form. Should a conflict of interest arise afterwards, the member must inform the chair of the committee of their conflict of interest and withdraw from the committee. In this case, a new member must be appointed by the Senate. Applicants for habilitation have access to the minutes of the meeting; if there are instances of bias that have not been declared, applicants for habilitation may inform the chair of the committee or his/her deputies; the consequences of this notification must be decided at the following meeting. 

7.2. Bias on the part of reviewers

Bias on the part of reviewers is regulated in the guidelines for Senate tasks in the habilitation procedure.

8. Habilitation lecture

According to § 7(1) of the Statutes of the University of Vienna, the scientific qualifications of the habilitation candidate must be reviewed "in a public discussion with the candidate about his or her academic publications, in which the expert reports and statements must also be addressed." This discussion takes the form of a public habilitation lecture to which the commission invites participants. Unless the commission decides otherwise, the title of the lecture corresponds to the title of the habilitation thesis. The habilitation lecture must address the expert reports and statements, in particular any points of criticism they raise. The lecture and the subsequent discussion should each last 30 minutes.

9. Withdrawal of the application for teaching authorisation

If the habilitation candidate withdraws the application for teaching authorisation during the procedure, the procedure shall be terminated. A new procedure can be sought at any time.