Academic Careers During the Massification of Austrian Higher Education

During the last five decades, Austrian higher education system underwent two major reform cycles that severely affected the working conditions for academics. In the 1970s and 1980s, Austrian policy makers created a stable ‘middle rank’, i.e. permanent academic positions below the professoriate. However, in 2001 this policy was reversed in connection with the introduction of a new governance regime. The paper will analyse how the changing legal conditions have shaped the academic profession and how these changes were perceived by academics. The central question of this paper is the balance between radical change and the persistence of long-standing traditions in the structure of Austrian academic careers.