Assistants and senior assistants are employed on the basis of § 4 para. 1 of the Regulations on Scientific Assistants (SRL 539g; https://srl.lu.ch/app/de/texts_of_law/539g). The maximum duration is five years. An extension beyond the maximum employment period of five years requires the approval of the dean. The rationale behind this is that assistant and senior assistant positions are qualifying positions, so it is in the interest of the individuals concerned to complete qualifying work within reasonable time - even if it would often be more convenient for supervisors to work with the same employees for the long term.

In terms of the Corona situation, this means the following:

• If an individual employment term of less than five years has been agreed upon, an employment extension can be initiated by the supervisor in the normal way (job mutation).
• If an individual term of employment of five years has been agreed, the consent of the superior is not sufficient. In this case, the extension also requires the approval of the dean, which must be submitted to the PAD together with the mutation form. As the EUL has already discussed on June 4, 2020, the additional work for the chair and the resulting delay in completing the qualification work constitutes a "justified exceptional case". It may therefore be assumed that the deans will approve such a request.

However, no extension can be granted without the approval of the supervisor(s), because professors have only a limited job budget at their disposal, which they cannot exceed and which they may already have disposed of otherwise towards the end of an employment period. If there are no such reasons, i.e. if a professor refuses to extend the employment for no reason, even though the qualification work has demonstrably been delayed due to the Corona situation, the assistant or senior assistant concerned can contact the Prorector for Personnel and Professorships, Prof. Dr. Regina Aebi-Müller, or to the Ombudsman of the University of Lucerne (https://www.unilu.ch/universitaet/organe/ombudsstelle/). (Esther Tremp, Head of Human Resources Department)