As soon as the Welcome Center has been informed of your envisaged stay at the University of Mannheim, we will contact you. Ideally, this will be already a few months ahead of your arrival because some important issues such as applying for a visa and finding accommodation will take a considerable amount of time. As a first step, we will ask you to register by filling in a brief check-in questionnaire in order to be able to better adapt our services to your needs. In order to be able to provide targeted advice we need to determine the exact status you will have at the University of Mannheim, because this will affect the kind of visa you have to apply for, the selection of appropriate health insurance and much more. As soon as we have collaboratively established your status together with the chair, we will inform you via e-mail about the next steps that are required in your particular case.
Will you be employed at the University of Mannheim or appointed as a civil servant? Do you receive a research fellowship as a visiting scholar? Do you stay at the University of Mannheim as a visiting doctoral student? One of the following statuses will apply to you:
You have been invited by a researcher of the University of Mannheim to pursue your own research project at the University of Mannheim for a certain period of time and to collaborate with researchers from Mannheim. You are financing your stay at the University of Mannheim from your own funds (e.g. taking a sabbatical with ongoing remuneration, by personal savings) or by means of a research fellowship, which you may have been granted in your home country or in Germany, by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, or similar. You will not receive any remuneration from the University of Mannheim and will not be employed. As you do not enter into an employment relationship with the University of Mannheim, we are going to ask you to conclude an agreement for visiting scholars with your host chair. Both parties will thus be provided legal certainty. In addition, you will be provided access to the research infrastructure of the University of Mannheim. In case you have not yet achieved your doctorate, the status “visiting doctoral student” may apply to you. The Welcome Center will be happy to advise you on the choice of the appropriate status.
You will conclude an employment contract with the University of Mannheim as academic staff member. In accordance with your job description, you do research and give courses at an institute or chair of the University of Mannheim. Provided that you already have a doctoral degree, you will be employed as post-doc. If this is not the case, the University of Mannheim, in consultation with your chair, provides you with the opportunity to take up your doctoral studies at the University of Mannheim. For this purpose, please apply for being admitted to the list of doctoral candidates of the corresponding school.
You will be officially appointed to the civil service. This means that the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of Baden-Württemberg (MWK) will officially appoint you to the University of Mannheim. As a prerequisite you must have a doctoral degree. The Welcome Center will be happy to advise you of the special social security and health insurance regulations applying to civil servants.
If you are a visiting doctoral student, you will not pursue your doctorate at the University of Mannheim, but do research work for your dissertation project at your home institution. You are a guest of a chair or institute of the University of Mannheim for a fixed period of time (e.g. one or two semesters) and will collaborate with your host at the University of Mannheim like visiting scholars do. As you are enrolled at your home institution as a doctoral student, you have the opportunity to also enroll at the University of Mannheim. As a so-called “visiting doctoral student” you will then be provided access to the university’s research infrastructure.
During the early stages of my employment, the team of the Welcome Center helped me a lot. They assisted me with the correct preparation of all necessary employment documents and forms. Moreover, they mediated during conversations with the university’s HR division as we all with the Land of Baden-Württemberg. The team of the Welcome Center is professional, friendly, and ready to help whenever help is needed.
Honestly, as a foreigner who doesn't speak German properly, I have always faced troubles, especially as regards administrative issues. BUT: at the University of Mannheim, the team of the Welcome Center takes the time to help you with filling in the required forms, walks you to appointments at the foreigners’ office, and assists you in getting a job contract. I really appreciate their support!
Thanks to the Welcome Center's support, you do not need to worry about complicated visa regulations. You will learn all important dates and required documents in your first week here in Mannheim. Moreover, the Welcome Center has a system to trace your residential status and will remind you in time to extend your visa, thus saving you the trouble of visa expiration. In view of all the efforts that the Welcome Center made for us, I feel that I cannot often enough say “Thank you”!
