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Comment by thrw3747433 | Hacker News Reader

I was actually neogtiating with my university-employer to _get_ such a job. Why you ask? Research is my thing, I can win grants which easily allow me to pay my own salary, hopefully til retirement. I just need the affiliation to be able to apply for many grants.

In my case the employer actually declined, because of the risks involved with German job security laws (it may have put me in a position to sue for a paid position after some time).

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Do they still have privatdozents in Germany? I remember an article by Hermann Weyl about that system. It was motivated by academic freedom: because the privatdozents weren't employees of the State, the government couldn't tell them what to do, and (somehow) the government also couldn't tell the professors who they could appoint as privatdozents. Becoming a privatdozent made you eligible to lecture at the university, so it meant the professors rather than the government were in charge of who was allowed to teach classes. That apparently wouldn't have worked if the privatdozents got any salary. They instead charged tuition directly to the students. But, it doesn't sound like this UCLA slot allows that.

I had no idea that grants could be directed towards staff costs - is that common? Is there some sort of review board that can check this?

I believe it's a pretty common thing to do to use (some of the) grant money to "buy your time back" from the university (where the expectation would otherwise be that you do 100% teaching).

Sure can. I can get grants specifically to hire someone. As long as that's specified in the grant, and I can prove that's what I did with the money, there's no issue. Non-profit in this circumstance, rather than education.

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