Scientific Career
At German universities, the central goal of an academic career is still a professorship. You can apply for a professorship after several years as postdoc, once you have created your own research profile and can represent your subject in its entire breadth. The qualification and career paths to a professorship, however, are diverse: they range from the classic habilitation to a junior research group leadership or junior professorship to the new tenure track professorships.
Progressing on these different career paths, you have one thing in common: you acquire external funding, you publish your research, you teach and, of course, you establish networks in your scientific community. In this way, you create your own academic portfolio, which makes you appointable to a professorial position or employable for another permanent position in science.