Page - 149 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 4 ♦  149 career-related consequences, and it seems to have been closely connected to the availability of extra-academic occupations in the university cities. Given the competition, career advancement was tightly connected with finding support and networks even before graduating. Within a faculty, students were often promoted by their teachers, but professors could also influence the nominations of their students at other universities, using informal networks that linked faculty members and even extended into the ministry. Several university-led factors influenced the career and mobility choices of young graduates and Privatdozenten. On the one hand, Privatdozenten at smaller universities had a better chance of academic promotion compared with those in Vienna, since the number of academics competing for profes- sorships was comparatively high in the capital. On the other hand, leaving the central university, that is, Vienna, meant less money, both from lectures and, especially in the case of practicing physicians, from nonacademic and semi-academic occupations. Moreover, for physicians, a smaller university meant fewer opportunities for practical work, which was highly valued in fu- ture appointments, as chairs were linked to hospital duties. Thun-Hohenstein had already stressed that medical scholars at smaller universities had to have experience in both practice and teaching, and he favored those work- ing in the capital.6 Subsequently, the ministry regarded practical ability as more important than scientific research for the small medical faculty in Innsbruck.7 Since some chairs were heads of clinics, legal approbation for medical practice was a necessity, favoring Habsburg candidates.8 These ar- guments should, however, be taken with caution. Almost throughout the whole period in question, the various ministers of education applied a par- ticular combination of practical, institutional, and ideological arguments to support the export of personnel from the Vienna Medical School and reaffirm its dominant role in central Europe. Salaries, Prestige, and the Habsburg Hierarchies During the nineteenth century, it became increasingly rare for a scholar who had worked at only one university to be nominated for a full profes- sorship; therefore, the question of geographic mobility remained crucial for scholars within the empire in regard to both their personal careers and any development policies at the faculties. The differences among faculties