A-Z for Teaching Staff

Please find below all the relevant information regarding your employment as a teaching staff memeber at the University of Zurich.

Instructors with a sound academic track record (both with and without habilitation) can become adjunct professors. This title is granted for a period of six years and can be extended several times. The faculty must submit a new application for extension to the Extended Executive Board of the University each time. Adjunct professors also have the right to retain their title after reaching the legal retirement age. The faculties are responsible for monitoring the time limits and reporting changes to HR Teaching Staff. Being an adjunct professor entitles you to use the honorific “Professor”.

It is generally not possible to combine public and private employment. Exceptions can be made in the following few cases:

• You work part time in Central Services on a public law employment contract but teach at a faculty.
• If a temporary substitute is required for a privately employed instructor due to illness or maternity leave, a publicly employed UZH employee can fill in for them under a separate private law employment contract.
• A privately employed instructor can substitute for an instructor with a public law employment contract if the latter becomes unavailable.

UZH uses contact hours to measure the teaching load of external instructors. One contact hour means that a course meets once per week for 45 minutes for one semester (14 weeks). This calculation does not take individual lecture cancellations into account (for example due to official holidays).

You can request an overview of all the courses you have taught from your faculty or from HR Teaching Staff (E-Mail).

The relevant faculty defines the minimum number of students per course.

The relevant dean's office is responsible for external instructors appointed via posting agreements between two universities or between UZH and the instructor's main employer.

Successful academics with a habilitation receive the designation of privatdozent. Upon appointment, they are granted the authority to teach (venia legendi). The privatdozent title and the venia legendi are granted on a lifelong basis according to the University Statutes. There is no obligation to teach, and there is no periodic review of teaching and research performance.

Privatdozents do not have an automatic right to teach courses within study programs. However, according to the University Statutes, they are to be taken into appropriate consideration when assigning study program courses to teaching staff. In any case, privatdozents may hold courses outside of study programs until they reach the age of 65 as long as a sufficient number of matriculated students enroll.

If a UZH employee teaches, teaching duties generally have to be part of their public law employment and therefore of their job description or catalogue of requirements. Remuneration can be made only in the event of special circumstances requiring additional temporary teaching activity, either via a teaching allowance or a small salary payment (up to CHF 1,050 per semester).

Guidelines on teaching allowances (PDF, 61 KB)(German only)

Guidelines on small salary payments (PDF, 23 KB) (German only)

If there are special circumstances requiring additional temporary teaching activity with a low level of remuneration (under CHF 1,050.00), instructors on public employment contracts may be remunerated in accordance with the guidelines on small salary payments.

Guidelines on small salary payments (PDF, 23 KB)(German only)

If there are special circumstances requiring additional temporary teaching activity, instructors on public employment contracts may be remunerated via a teaching allowance.

Guidelines on teaching allowances (PDF, 61 KB)(German only)