Habilitation Positions

If you are an early-career scholar, a position at the MPIfG as a senior researcher is an opportunity for you to work towards your habilitation on a six-year contract (an initial three years, with the option of a further three years following successful evaluation). Open positions are announced on the careers page of our website. You must have successfully completed a PhD to be eligible, but applications are welcome at any stage of your career.

Senior researchers at the MPIfG are members of a director’s Research Area or of a research group. In this role, you are able to concentrate fully on your research project. There is no obligation for you to teach, but you can choose to do so at the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) or a university. A senior researcher position comes with a number of other opportunities in connection with working on your research project, such as fieldwork, creating a database, taking part in internal or external training and national and international conferences, and organizing your own workshops. You also have the option of employing a student assistant or intern for your project. Throughout your time at the Institute, we provide career development support that takes into account individual needs and the requirements of your project.

Being involved in Institute life is an important part of working at the MPIfG, which is why we expect our senior researchers to live in the Cologne area. We are therefore happy to be able to offer some assistance with moving to Cologne and various measures to help balance work and family life. We reimburse the costs of the flight/ international train ticket for international senior researchers traveling to the MPIfG from their former country of residence (2nd class/economy class, reimbursement of the actual ticket costs, maximum 2,000 Euro).