KRAM - About Us
The Collegial Council of Academic Employees (Kollegiumsrat Akademischer Mitarbeiter*innen - KRAM) sees itself as a forum for information exchange and networking across faculties and academic support units at the university. The current KRAM, in office since July 2025, includes 6 colleagues from various status groups and academic disciplines. Among its members are doctoral researchers, postdocs, and lecturers — long-time members of the University of Bremen as well as (relatively) new faces, representing fields such as human and health sciences, social sciences, and mathematics.
This internal diversity enables KRAM to effectively bring together and consolidate different interests, giving the heterogeneous group of academic staff in non-professorial positions a strong voice within the university’s academic self-governance.
Goals and Mission
- Influencing and participating in university-level decision-making and policy-shaping processes
- Representing the interests of the diverse group commonly referred to as the “Mittelbau” or the academic staff in non-professorial positions (including doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, university lecturers, senior researchers and senior lecturers, teaching staff for special tasks, doctoral researchers without employment contracts, and scholarship holders)
- Fostering networking and information exchange on matters relevant to academic staff across faculties and academic support units at the university
- Coordinating with other elected representative bodies (e.g., Employee Representative Council (“Personalrat”), Equal Opportunities Officers, academic staff representatives at the faculty level) and with decision-making bodies within academic self-governance (such as the Academic Senate and Faculty Councils)
- Providing information and raising awareness among academic staff regarding employment conditions and relevant legal frameworks
- Offering low-threshold support to colleagues facing individual challenges
Membership
Becoming a member of KAM (College of Academic Staff) is simple and possible at any time. Just fill out the membership declaration, sign it, and send it:
- Via internal mail:
Dr. Ronald Stöver / KRAM
Center for Industrial Mathematics, MZH 2310
or - Via email:
stoever@uni-bremen.de
As a KAM member, you are eligible to vote in KRAM elections. You will also regularly receive invitations to KRAM meetings and the corresponding minutes, and you are warmly encouraged to contribute your own topics and concerns.
To ensure that KRAM continues to serve as an effective cross-faculty advocacy body for academic staff of different status groups, we need your engagement! Whether you are a PhD candidate or Postdoc, a Lecturer, Senior Researcher or Senior Lecturer: New members are always very welcome!
Elections
Elections to KRAM are held every two years as part of the university’s committee elections. All academic staff members who are KAM members are eligible to vote. The next regular elections will be held in the summer semester 2027.
Regardless of a membership in the College of Academic Employees (KAM), all academic staff are eligible to vote in the elections for the following committees:
- Academic Senate: The university’s central decision-making body
→ KRAM draws up its own list of candidates here - Faculty Council: The decision-making body at the faculty level
→ Academic staff in non-professorial positions (WiMis) elect their own representatives
The establishment of the College of Academic Employees (KAM), along with its Council (KRAM) and its original statute were approved by the Academic Senate of the University of Bremen on April 19, 2000. The current version of the statute can be found here.