Professorships in Private Law

The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen (UCPH), invites applications for one or two positions as professor in private law.

The positions have research -, teaching - and administrative obligations. The positions are to be filled by June 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Recruitment purpose
Employment requires broad and documented experience of research and teaching in private law at an international level. The faculty is interested in applicants in the field of Danish private law and in international private law of relevance to the faculty's research and study programmes.

Preference is given to applicants with a broad academic profile and a documented ability to contribute broadly to research and teaching. The faculty emphasises that the applicant's research profile and educational profile clearly contributes to research and teaching at the faculty.

Research at the faculty is organised in research centres, and it is expected that applicants, in the attached research plan, can explain how his/her research can contribute to one or more research centres, see more https://jura.ku.dk/english/research/centres_service_units/

It is expected that the applicant can document significant teaching experience in private law subjects in his/her teaching portfolio, and it is a clear advantage if the applicant can document experience of teaching broadly in basic private law subjects at bachelor's level; https://jura.ku.dk/english/education/  

Please notice that these subjects at BA-level are taught in Danish. Applicants are therefore expected to either be able to teach in Danish at the time of the application, or to acquire proficiency in Danish that will make it probable that the applicant will be able to teach in Danish within 3-6 years. The faculty actively supports that those employees who at the time of employment do not have any further experience with Danish (or any other Scandinavian language) in writing or speech are enabled to acquire these abilities.

Questions about recruitment needs in this advertisement can be directed to Dean Jacob Graff Nielsen via dekan@jur.ku.dk.

Job content
The main tasks of the professors are:

• Research within a subject area, including publishing and disseminating academic results within a subject area, both nationally and internationally.
• Fulfilling teaching and administrative obligations, including course management, subject area development at the highest international level and, in this connection, performing research-based teaching and examinations together with administrative obligations within a subject area together with supervision of bachelor, master, and PhD students.
• Knowledge exchange with society and participation with academic knowledge in the public debate.
• Research management, including by attracting external funding of salaries for research projects, by guidance and supervision of assistant professors and other researchers, and by participating in academic assessment work.

The professor is obliged to develop and maintain his/her competencies in research, teaching and pedagogy. In addition, other tasks may be assigned to the faculty, and the weighting between the different tasks may vary over time.

Qualification requirements

In addition to the recruitment needs highlighted above, recruitment will place decisive emphasis on:

• Documented high degree of original scientific production at international level, including that the applicant has further developed the subject area. In this connection, emphasis is placed on publication in nationally and internationally leading journals/publishers and experience with research presentations within the field's leading conferences at international level.
• Ability and plan to continue to further develop the subject area, including theory development and publication of research that relates to and develops "state of the art" within the subject area.
• Ability to and experience with research management and performance of other management functions, e.g. through documented ability to participate and build an active and strong collective research environment as well as attracting external funding in the form of salary funds for the same.
• Teaching qualifications at a very high level, including for the development of research-based education, teaching aids and significant and broad experience in the implementation and development of research-based teaching in the field.
• Good interpersonal skills as well as the ability to build research and teaching environment around one's research and subject area.

Read more about the qualification requirements for professors in the ministerial order on the job structure for academic staff at universities 2019.

Six overall criteria apply for professor appointments at the University of Copenhagen. The six criteria (research, teaching, societal impact, organizational contribution, external funding and leadership) are considered a framework for the overall assessment of candidates. Furthermore, each candidate must be assessed according to the specific requirements stated in the job advertisement.

You can read more about the UCPH criteria and the Criteria for recognising merit for professors

Salary and conditions of employment 
Terms of appointment and salary will be in accordance with an agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC).  The salary range is DKK 58,588 per month + a 17,1 % contribution to the pension scheme. It is possible to negotiate salary supplements on an annual basis. A special tax scheme is offered to researchers recruited abroad, read more at this homepage: https://ism.ku.dk/salary-tax-pension/tax/

If you consider applying from abroad, you may find useful information on how it is to work in Denmark and at UCPH. Find more information here: https://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-GB and https://ism.ku.dk

The application 

Letter of motivation, appendixes and the submitted scientific publications, incl. papers, articles and books, must be written in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or English.

The application MUST include the following 8 elements:

1. Application / letter of motivation
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Diplomas. Documentation of qualifications (degrees/diplomas, PhD diploma etc.)
4. Publications list. Complete numbered list of publications included in the application.
5. Teaching portfolio. This must include documentation for teaching qualifications, including teaching experience in private law, evaluations as well as a brief statement of the applicant's teaching visions within the research area. Documentation of experience with the operation and development of education, pedagogy and didactics at a strategic level should be included in the teaching portfolio as well. For more information regarding teaching portfolio, applicants are encouraged to read the Job application portfolio – University of Copenhagen (ku.dk) here
6. Research plan. An outline of planned research activities, including publication plans and plans for applications for external funding. The plan must be ambitious and structured and also document the applicant’s skills to contribute to research in one or more of the Faculty’s research centres and environments, including how research can benefit the students in one or more of the Faculty’s study programs.
7. Publications. A maximum of seven (7) scientific publications that the applicant wishes to have included in the assessment, of which no more than three (3) may be monographs. Applicants, who have written a doctoral dissertation, PhD thesis or equivalent, must always submit the complete thesis and the written assessment of the thesis as a part of submitted publications if the thesis is written in one of the languages mentioned below. A PhD thesis written in another language may be submitted, but the Assessment Committee is not required to assess the thesis. The submitted research publications must be written in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or English
8. Co-author declaration. If citing work where the applicant has been a co-author, a co-author declaration, which addresses the applicant's share of these works, must be submitted. Material that has not yet published can be submitted. However, please indicate if this is the case.

Appointment procedure 

The application, appendices and the scientific works are uploaded electronically via the link below. The material must be in Adobe PDF or Word format. ZIP files cannot be uploaded.

We recommend that you have all the required documents ready before you begin your online application, and it is important that all required documentation is attached.

Automatic confirmation of receipt of the uploaded application will be sent.
Applicants will be informed about the process on an ongoing basis via email.

After the application deadline, the appointing manager, with advice from the recruitment committee, selects which applicants proceed to assessment. The applicants are selected on the basis of an overall assessment of which applicants best match the faculty's recruitment needs and the qualification requirements stated in the vacancy notice. This is compared with the applicant's research and teaching profile, which appears in the application's CV, list of publications, teaching portfolio and research plan. All applicants will be informed immediately afterwards whether their application has proceeded to assessment by an expert assessment committee. The successful candidates are informed of the composition of the assessment committee and each candidate is given the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment which concerns the applicant himself.

According to the University of Copenhagen's diversity and equality policy, there must be at least one applicant of each gender before the position can be filled.

The UCPH wishes to encourage everyone interested in this post to apply, regardless of personal background.

Further information about the application procedure is available from HR, e-mail: hrsc@hrsc.ku.dk. Please refer to ID number 211-0303/24-2K

The closing date for applications is January 6, 2025, at 23:59 [CEST]

Applications or supplementary material received thereafter will not be considered.

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The Faculty of Law is one of six faculties at the University of Copenhagen. The Faculty carries out research, education and knowledge dissemination within the area of law. Research is partly organized in research centres and groups with focus on thematic areas of interest. The Faculty employs about 140 full time researchers and approx. 60 PhD students as well as approx. 75 administrative staff members. In addition, approx. 400 part-time lecturers teach on the legal programmes on which approx. 4,500 students are enrolled. See the Faculty website: https://jura.ku.dk/english for more information.