Category: 3. Academia
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German universities to take university rankings serious
Germany is the best place I know to be a professor if you value your independence. Your rights have been codified in the German Basic Law (Constitution) and no dean can tell you what to do. You are your own person. On the downside, German professors and universities have been (for the most part) blissfully…
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The economics of financing Ph.D. students as company contractors
Occasionally companies approach me with the following proposal: If I’m willing to supervise one of their employees for an external Ph.D. thesis, they’ll pay into my University budget an annual lump sum, typically something like EUR 10000. I almost always reject such proposals, unless I can change some of the critical terms, because these proposals…
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Research, teaching, and startup concept of my professorship (in German)
Over on my research group’s blog at Friedrich-Alexander University I finished summarizing the underlying concepts for the three cornerstones of my professorship: The research concept The teaching concept The start-up concept I wrote it in German, as this is reaches the target group best; as always, Google Translate is your friend, and if you are…
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Four months of open source professorship
2009 is coming to an end and so are my first four months as a professor. Time to take stock, if only shortly. The Open Source Research group posted a year-end summary for its first months There is initial sponsorship by Red Hat and Novell, demonstrating industry interest There was a fair amount of press…
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Busy at the open source research group
We had a busy first week over at the website of the Open Source Research Group: Fun! And don’t be shy, take a look!