PhDs and postdocs in Germany

Here, I allowed myself to copy a great resource for people thinking of doing science in Deutschland!!

BAT and TV Salary Scale

Most doctoral student positions in Germany are advertised as TV-L 13, or sometimes still as BAT IIa or BAT IIa/2. What is that? Here's a quick reference:
General

TV (or TVÖD) stands for Tarifvertrag im Öffentlichen Dienst while BAT stands for Bundesangestelltentarif—both mean tariffs for German civil service employees. The TV tariffs determine the salary based on experience and family situation; the older BAT tariffs depend on age as well as family situation; there is normally no variability based on negotiation or location. These tariffs are periodically adjusted for inflation. In the former East Germany, they are set a bit lower than in the former West, but this difference is decreasing and will eventually disappear.
TV-L 13

TV level 13 is the tariff that doctoral students in engineering, computer science and applied math (high-demand occupations) qualify for. For a single person this means a gross salary of about €2800 per month and about €3100 after one year. Compared to most doctoral stipends in the US, this is a fantastic deal. Working hours are 39.83 per week. That's 10 minutes and 12 seconds less than 40—talk about German precision! Paid vacation is, depending on age, between 26 and 30 days per year, if that's what you're into.
BAT IIa

This tariff was replaced by TV-L 13 in late 2006.
BAT IIa/2

Doctoral students in other fields—pure mathematics, natural sciences, humanities—get half of the BAT IIa salary for the same amount of work. Bummer.

Stipend

Some doctoral positions involve stipends rather than salaries; these are typically part of research training group (Graduiertenkolleg or GRK), i.e., a group of doctoral students working on a single theme. These range between €1100 (standard) and €1500 (augmented, or erhöhtes Stipendium). The advantage of these positions is a structured doctoral program that leads to a doctorate in about 3 years after M.S. Some program like the AICES graduate school offer stipends of €2000, which is more competitive with the TV-L 13 scale, while offering the benefits of a structured doctoral program.

Postdoc

Postdocs are often paid on the same pay scale as the doctoral students, i.e., TV-L 13 or BAT IIa. By virtue of being older and having more experience, that may mean higher salary though. Also, postdoctoral positions with special responsibilities, such as junior research group leaders, may carry higher salary category, e.g., TV-L 14 (formerly BAT Ib) or TV-L 15 (formerly BAT Ia), or even the highest TV-L 15Ü (formerly BAT I). Working hours remain, alas, at the magic 39.83 hours per week.
Calculators

If you know a bit of German, a TV calculator or a BAT calculator can help determine exactly brutto salary, based on your age, experience and family status. Average salaries (including benefits) are also listed in a German document from the DFG (PDF).

source: http://www.cats.rwth-aachen.de/

OK so home messages are that BAT is gone, now they've got TV-L (go figure the acronyms ;)
Salaries in Germany are pretty decent, highly regulated and transparent which is good I think. For a grad it is usually TV-L 13, unfortunately for postdocs it is usually the same, however they would get more due to age and experience (they will start from higher level or 'stufe').

To tentatively see how much you could get I attach a table with salary ladders.

The one most interesting for us is entgeltgruppe 13. Obviously as a PhD student you start from stufe 1. After two years you find yourself in stufe zwei, after three in level 3 and so on year after year from then on, till you reach level 6. Wages are brutto (yeah I know) so actual money are way smaller. When it comes to german taxes:


* Taxation of an individual's income is progressive. In other words, the higher the income, the higher the rate of tax payable. In 2010 the Germany tax rates for an individual are 14% - 45%.
* Singles pay on income above EUR 250,731 (couples, on income above EUR 501,462) income tax of 45% before 5.5% solidarity tax.

In addition to regular tax, there is a municipal trade tax of 14%-17% that is imposed by the municipality.

I don't know the exact numbers but you can easily subtract 20-30% from brutto salaries.

The table I presented above is for the west germany region. They stil discriminate west from east (they get little less). On top of that areas like Berlin get additional allowance.
Here is a great resource if you can find your way on a german website. You can look up all the salary ladders, and explanations why what and when.

http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/

Oh I want to add one more thing related to my last post.

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SURVEY

Few things about postdoc fate

My 2007 July and August posts were very substantial and content related (oh yes :). There is an ample info on  wages, visas and paper reviewing. Have a look to them, they still might be very helpful. Let's come back to that a little. Here's my situation. I should probably be super happy but apparently... not so much.

First postdoc and paycheck for $40,000 annually. Is it decent? You could probably say so considering postdocs salary ladders. Well, I have to support other people and it immediately is not sufficient. Now I'm in my 4th year of postdocing and I do $47,000. How do I do that some might ask. I'm a Rockefeller amongst postdocs hahah. Just kidding, I know postdocs making more than that, they're more experienced (or older ;) though.Nevertheless, this what they pay me is little higher when compared to what NIH advices. I'm negotiating my salary. I'm not super tough or anything. I'm always nice, sometimes even begging like type I'd say. First: I ask for more (not everybody is doing that). I picture my miserable life to an employee and how I have to support family and how little is left at the end of the day. It worked in my instances at least. I have just realized that postdocs make little more these days and perhaps they will soon earn even more or at least those from expensive areas (SF, NY, Boston). Let's update the ladder of NRSA:

0 years $ 37,740
1 $ 39,756
2 $ 42,624
3 $ 44,304
4 $ 45,960
5 $ 47,940
6 $ 49,836
7 or more $ 52,068

So, it looks like I'm almost spot on. That's a surprise haha.
Anyway, unfortunately there is no single lie in things I say at the interview. I thought I'll be better off here with a new salary but not really so. Insurance (almost $300 for you and little less than $500 for a family), taxes (freaking 6%)and rent (over $1000) - for all these I have to pay more so in fact my quality of life has somewhat deteriorated O_O Who would have thought? I wonder almost everyday what the hell am I doing at this age with this peanut money? I still love my job, I'd probably suck as a businessman or a company employee and  I always comfort myself that it will change once I get my faculty and tenure later on ;)))) Yeah if I get it at all. I realize this might not happen to soon or at all and even if it does then what? I'll be at $70,000 at best as an assistant professor. This should be enough though to live a normal life, stop piling up more debts on my credit card, stop worrying that tomorrow I might have nothing to drive with etc. That would already be something for me. Well perhaps it's gonna happen but I have to work harder instead of writing extended posts on my blog :-) Get your self together! To the lab - march! Preps are waiting... preps are always waiting...

And one more haha

:) I'm enjoying my come back to the blog (it's gonna last 2 weeks probably). So just a little update. Not even one year ago I have started my second postdoc (yay) with high hopes and expectations. I must admit that this changes brought me back to life, at least for a few months. I was really downgrading at my former lab. I had no motivation, nobody pushed me so getting lazy, mentoring non-existent...

Now I'm in a really vibrant environment and had to work hard to keep up with everything what was going on around me. I guess it is also a thrill of a new project and possibilities. I switched to CNS development and was dreaming about it before. Project sounded great so all good.

However, I think I'm getting into a stagnant phase or I'am in a stagnant phase. Perhaps because my PI bailed out completely for grant writing? Maybe also I settled down, I'm not new anymore and know my way around... Lastly, project as it usually happens is not moving forward smoothly anymore and I start to discover many little flaws and drawbacks of the design that probably could have been better thought of. That is probably all more or less normal, I still like the place - It's like heaven and hell comparison to the last one but I worry that I'm starting to loose my attention again.

Anyhow, my goal is this postdoc to be the last one in my career. I want to look for a faculty position afterwards and my current boss is supportive of that (however in a rather vague way). I'm making first tries of writing outlines of my ideas for future grants and research lines. I would like to apply for K-award, not sure though if I'm gonna make it. I'm also trying to develop new brilliant strategies for my current project to push it forward and publish something huuuge ;) And so it goes... How you doin'? :)
Look up, what a nice morel I found :)

Mullis entertaining again :)

Kary Mullis got a Noble price for PCR invention. There is a story that he was enlightened and saw the whole process while on LSD trip. Allegedly he was able to ride the polymerase and amplify the DNA fragments... maybe he was who knows ;)

 Now he claims he's about to replace antibiotics therapy with a more efficient strategy based on developing DNA aptamers that would be able to easily recognize any kind of bacteria. As controversial as he is, let's hope this can bring some new strategies to fight bacterial infections.

Dawkins another argument for evolution

Still amazes me that there are people out there not taking evolution for granted and sooo many of them here in US. I also find it sad that Richard Dawkins has to continue with this hopeless crusade and not much seems to change. He's very dedicated though and made it a point of his life I guess. I admire the devotion but would never do it myself. Why bother? I guess I always have been more on the opportunistic side of life... cool giraffe btw. Oh and I never made it to Hawaii (obviously)

Member of biosafety committee banned from his lab for unauthorized research

I have just decided that maybe I can throw something in here from time to time again.

I will write more about my hiatus with this blog later. For now it's gonna be more in the form of publishing interesting scientific news with a little comment of mine.

For start breaking news from UW!! Dr. Splitter kicked out of the lab cause his postdoc and grad had been working on Brucella without permission. My comment: LOL! Splitter was in big denial at first but then confessed he knew about the whole thing. To ice on the cake Splitter was a member of UW biosafety committee. Again: LMAO. Have a look:

The University of Wisconsin Madison has revoked the laboratory privileges of Gary Splitter and paid the federal government $40,000 in fines for biosafety violations.

The University of Wisconsin (UW) Madison revoked the laboratory privileges of Gary Splitter, a professor of animal health and biomedical science, for inadequate supervision of biosafety protocols.
The revocation of Splitter’s lab privileges occurred after it was determined that lab members were conducting unauthorized experiments with the highly regulated pathogen Brucella. Graduate students and post-doctoral researchers in the Splitter laboratory genetically modified a strain of Brucella in ways that, UW determined, could have led to the development of antibiotic resistance by the pathogen, which causes infections cattle and humans resulting in fevers and headaches. No infections were reported as a result of these unauthorized experiments, but because these experiments violated federal protocols, the university paid $40,000 in fines to the federal government. Splitter is barred from laboratory research at UW Madison for five years.

Cells exhibiting a brucella infection. Source: Wikipedia Commons

According to a statement released by the university, Splitter denied knowledge of the experiments and suggested that faulty oversight by the university was to blame for allowing the modifiedBrucella studies to commence. After an investigation, UW Madison concluded that though Splitter was not conducting the experiments himself, he did know about them, and was ultimately responsible for any research conducted in his lab. The laboratory was a biohazard level 3 facility, meaning that it handled agents that could cause serious and potentially lethal diseases if inhaled.
Splitter was a member of UW Madison’s biosafety committee and played a role in approving studies involving hundreds of researchers and extremely hazardous materials. The university does not believe the committee was compromised from Splitter’s involvement, since other committee members always checked individual decisions.
According to William Mellon, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UW Madison, and a member of the University’s research oversight system, there were 10 other people on the biosafety committee with Splitter. "They wouldn't have approved [research proposals] if they didn't feel it was appropriate," Mellon said in a statement.
Splitter’s five-year suspension, which was enacted in December 2008, stipulates that Splitter cannot work with select agents, have access to high-level biosafety laboratories, supervise research, or serve as a lead research in any grant-related projects. He remains a member of the UW Madison faculty. Splitter waived his right to appeal the decision in exchange for the addition of a statement defending himself against the charges, which was added to his record with the University.
In a separate biosafety incident in 2008, a researcher in Splitter’s laboratory was infected with an unmodified strain ofBrucella. The researcher was treated and made a full recovery.

source: http://www.biotechniques.com