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Can a full-time Ph.D. student legally work in a private company, and draw the stipend from the university and the salary from the job at the same time?

I am interested to know the regulations of Germany and Poland.

user366312
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    I very doubt it. At least in my country, Italy, this would not be possible, and I suspect that also Germany and Poland may have similar regulations. – Massimo Ortolano Jun 12 '22 at 07:01
  • @MassimoOrtolano, so, in order to become a Ph.D. student, you must first accept poverty? What if I don't accept the stipend from the uni? – user366312 Jun 12 '22 at 07:16
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    @user366312: I don't know about Poland but in Germany your income as a PhD candidate is not a "stipend" it is a salary and it is well above a poverty level (albeit low compared to what you can earn as a high performing graduate). – Jack Aidley Jun 12 '22 at 07:32
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    I agree that in Poland, as far as I know, the PhD salary is low (afaik around 400 €/month, at least a few years ago), even considering the low cost of living in that country, but in Germany a PhD salary is far from the level of poverty. – Massimo Ortolano Jun 12 '22 at 07:44
  • @MassimoOrtolano, Now it is PLN 2300/month. – user366312 Jun 12 '22 at 07:44
  • It is (almost) the same number in Germany, but in euros ;) – quantacad Jun 12 '22 at 07:46
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    Please don’t change so substantially the question once it has already received answers. Having both perspectives is not bad anyway. – Massimo Ortolano Jun 12 '22 at 07:48
  • @MassimoOrtolano, this link doesn't say anything about my raised point. – user366312 Jun 12 '22 at 08:01
  • That link says that a PhD student should “comply with common law and the regulations in force at the University”, so there can be something else in the law or in other regulations. – Massimo Ortolano Jun 12 '22 at 08:10
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    @JackAidley: "in Germany your income as a PhD candidate is not a 'stipend' it is a salary" Well, this depends. Technically, the status as a PhD candidate in Germany is not directly related to the question how the candidate is funded. Various options for funding include (i) salary from a "Landesstelle", (ii) salary from a grant, (iii) a scholarship from one of various public or private foundations, or (iv) to work in the private sector (potentially on a part time position) and use your spare time to do your PhD. – Jochen Glueck Jun 12 '22 at 12:37
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    @user366312: There is a lot of information about funding of PhD positions in Germany in this answer (under the point "Position"). – Jochen Glueck Jun 12 '22 at 12:52
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    @user366312 The answer will depend on whether you get a stipend, or a salary through the university. – user151413 Jun 12 '22 at 13:01
  • @JochenGlueck Fair enough, I stand corrected: all the PhDs I've known in Germany have been salaried. I'd assumed it was the norm. – Jack Aidley Jun 12 '22 at 15:34

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No. In many German contracts, it is explicitly mentioned that you are either not allowed to work anywhere else, or you need permission from your full-time PhD employer to work somewhere else. You can try to request but it will very likely not work.

Reasons:

  1. PhD is a full-time job.
  2. Read 1.

If you get a PhD position in Germany, you will very likely get a reasonable amount to support your livelihood. It is, I've heard many times, the opposite in Poland. I do not know the legal issues in Poland, but I suspect it must be possible to work. Otherwise, how else are so many students surviving from the money they get from the state?

Massimo Ortolano
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quantacad
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  • While not necessarily accepting poverty, it seems students in Germany must instead accept slavery. While I certainly prefer my students focus on their graduate degree (and I make sure their have a stipend above poverty), I legally have no say in what they do outside their reasonable hours of work. – ZeroTheHero Jun 12 '22 at 12:29
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    @ZeroTheHero: "it seems students in Germany must instead accept slavery": I've heard this quite often, but I have difficulties to fully understand this claim. As a PhD student in Germany you are indeed quite strongly dependent on your advisor. However, considering the countlessly many questions by desparate PhD students on Academia StackExchange I doubt that this is so much better in other places in the world (although I would indeed be happy to be false here). – Jochen Glueck Jun 12 '22 at 12:45
  • @quantum "that you are either not allowed to work anywhere else" - I find this hard to believe, at least for TVL/TVöD (i.e. public service) contracts: I thought in public service you are entitled to a side job of up to 8h. Are there states where the rules are different? Or where PhD students have different type of public service contracts? – user151413 Jun 12 '22 at 12:58
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    @ZeroTheHero There are typically common rules for all people hired by the state about working on the side. So PhD students are typically not treated any different. Then, the claim that they cannot work on the side is typically not correct (see my comment above), but it is true that there is a limit on the number of hours (less so on the salary), with the typical idea being that working more than a certain numbers of hours per week (48h or so) is not beneficial. – user151413 Jun 12 '22 at 13:00
  • @JochenGlueck I know the German system sufficiently well to know that one need not work outside normal hours. I just find it incredible that you cannot legally do so. Afterall, if you want to work -say - as a bartender in the evenings and this doesn’t affect your academic progress, why should this be illegal or why should your advisor have any say in this? – ZeroTheHero Jun 12 '22 at 13:12
  • … I should add that I believe in NA too many students spend too much time working outside university to make ends meet, but that’s a slightly different issue. – ZeroTheHero Jun 12 '22 at 13:14
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    @user151413: It seems that the 48 hours limit per week does not only apply to people employed by a public institution, but generally for most employees in Germany, no matter whether they work in the public or in the private sector (though there are some exceptions). See for instance here (in German). – Jochen Glueck Jun 12 '22 at 13:33
  • TVöD only decides the monthly enumeration of pay, and does not dictate what the employer can put as a condition in the contract. The money a PhD student gets is for their work done as given by the supervisor. This does not need be PhD relevant (if you have a bad advisor). You are supposed to work on your PhD outside these hours. That is why the restrictions (my guess). My answer does not cover what happens if no explicit restriction exists in the contract. I am inclined to believe it is possible (and not possible if you are a foreigner). – quantacad Jun 12 '22 at 15:19
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    @quantum The restrictions are for paid jobs, and I don't think there is a way around this in the public sector, at least if you are employed on a full-time position: You must inform your employer of your side job (or ask for permission, if there might be COIs), and you cannot work more than a certain number of hours. (There's also a softer limit on how much you can make.) – user151413 Jun 12 '22 at 20:17
  • @ZeroTheHero: you are right. If the PhD student is employee, there is the 48 h/wk general limit - but I'd be surprised about a PhD contracts specifying more than 40 h/wk. Which would leave 8 h/wk, for which the student like any other employee has the right to get approval by their employer (subject to general rules like non-compete etc.). A scholarship contract may specify that the holder cannot have additional employment (more than x h/wk). I'd expect that such restrictions still need to be proportionate (low scholarship => must allow more side-job). – cbeleites unhappy with SX Aug 15 '22 at 17:09