During this spring, the University of Helsinki is forced to terminate staff on financial and production-related grounds. As a consequence, the University is obligated to offer any positions that become vacant to the terminated employees. The University must first consider candidates among the terminated employees as the potential appointee for each vacancy. Only if none can be found may the position be filled through an open call for applications.

In order for the University to fulfil its obligation as an employer to offer employment to terminated employees, the procedure according to which permission must be applied for recruitment remains in force.

Exceptions to the permission procedure: doctoral students and research assistants

Since the University’s cooperation procedure does not include doctoral students and research assistants, recruitment permissions are not needed to fill such positions.

However, when hiring doctoral students, units must take into consideration the regulation that only in exceptional circumstances may an employment contract be concluded for less than a year. Such circumstances apply when the doctoral student is expected to defend his or her dissertation in a public examination in less than a year. The purpose is to ensure the doctoral student employment throughout the entire duration of postgraduate study, in other words, for a period between one and four years, depending on the stage of the dissertation.

It should also be taken into consideration that the University of Helsinki does not offer grants for postgraduate study, but engages doctoral students working at the University in an employment relationship. This applies to research financed from both the University’s core funding and external funding.

Students at the University of Helsinki may be appointed to the position of research assistant if this position is relevant to their own studies, for example, to the writing of their Master’s thesis. Research assistantships are always for a fixed term.

An exception may be made in the case of a student who has applied for the right to pursue postgraduate studies but has not yet received this right and, consequently, cannot be employed as a doctoral student. Such students may be employed for a short period as research assistants.