In general, the biggest hurdles for ACS are insufficient time for research, insufficient independence, and increased workload limiting the possibility to combine family and career. In addition, there is a lack of long-term perspectives. With its concept, the UKE iSTAR program strives to learn from the past to overcome these hurdles and in turn, create a promising and flexible career path.

The protection of research time is one of the most critical aspects of iSTAR. Therefore, it is essential that the contract of each participant guarantees 50 % of working hours as protected research time. Thus, before entering the program, the ACS, the director of the host department, and the iSTAR leadership team will agree on the protected research time and define the time allocated to clinical activity.

Our hypothesis is that this program will not only allow us to close the translational gap, but also enable the participants to obtain leading positions in academia and industry. Thus, we will establish an Assessment Center, which will continuously monitor:

i) the individual outcome of the participants for 10 years upon completion of this program;

ii) the scientific and clinical impact on the participating departments (e.g. number of IITs, amount of third-party funding, publications, number of patients treated, patient satisfaction (as assessed by the continuous monitoring by the UKE)); and

iii) the structural impact on the Faculty (e.g. cooperations, research clusters).