Abstract:

Changing conditions for professionals and management personnel at the labor markets are increasingly facing engagement and career opportunities of graduate and the multifunctional role of PhD for internal and external scientific place of action and careers. Initiatives about a science policy reversal for the promotion of young academics are coming up.
The study done in 2000, “Interaction between science and industry in Germany. Results of a survey by universities and public research facilities” by Prof. Dr. Dirk Czarnitzki, Christian Rammer and Alfred Spielkamp of the Center for European Economic Research, showed, that technology-policy debates and innovation-economic studies are focused on the transfer of knowledge and technology between public research facilities and companies (for an overview see Bozemann 2000).
In the last few years the discussion about knowledge and technology transfer revived again. The increasing relevance of knowledge-based technologies for contestability of industry and services suggests an increased cooperation between Science and Economics (Blume 1987:3). Knowledge and technology transfer among Science and Economics in Germany takes place on many different channels, of which formal research collaborations, therefore third-party funds from economy, represent only one aspect. Informal forms of knowledge exchange, but also the disclosure of knowledge and technologies across publications - from the perspective of science, play a major role. The knowledge transfer over humans, i.e. the alteration of scientists from public research in business and reverse (Czarnitzki, Rammer, Spielkamp 2000:1) is in all studied types of institutions an important transfer channel. This applies to application-oriented as well as for long-term basic research units.
Under the conditions of the knowledge socially change of qualification, work, occupation and net product, the university system as a research and educational institution experiences a comprehensive functional growth. More and more experts are needed for specialized knowledge. The innovation and competition of high pressure as a result of the globalization forces, to optimize the qualification of young researchers, in our focus the post docs, for activities inside the academic sector as well as for employment fields outside this range, for example in the economy (Enders, Bornmann 2001:15).
University systems take a central education function and are supposed to see to a continuous training security by their own qualified personnel, which promoted to the education and research operation ‘University System’ , at the hands of the good quality of the training for young scientists. Post Docs, who stay in the academic sector, contribute significantly to the training and research services of the university system. Therefore it is important to bring out excellently qualified junior scientific staff, also with regard to the generation change by teaching stuff within the university, and in the best case to keep them into the scientific system. For the purpose of an efficient knowledge economy, it has to receive an added value of knowledge and to communicate knowledge, just as our increasingly knowledge-based society needed (Enders 2005:42).

Keywords:

Education in science, post docs, carreer paths, labor market, engineering disciplines, SMEs, large concerns, scientific enterprises.