In July 2022 the Greek parliament took a first step towards reforming and upgrading higher education to Western-European and North-American standards and takes a first step, through the passage of Law 4957.

One of the most important provisions of the new law is the creation of visiting professor appointments. According to the law (article 171, par. 1) a visiting professor is defined as "a Greek or foreign scientist who holds the position of professor or researcher in a foreign organization or possesses the qualifications required for the election to the position of Assistant Professor in a Greek University". Even though some have argued that visiting professor appointments should be used to target established academics/researchers, in practice this would be very challenging. Long-tenured professors would have to secure approvals from their home universities to go on a visiting appointment, suspend their teaching schedule, and spend time away from their core research teams. Instead we propose that this initiative be used as a driver for the repatriation of the unexploited pool of Greek postdoctoral fellows who live and excel in universities abroad.

A postdoctoral researcher is internationally defined as a researcher who has completed his doctoral studies and continues to develop his skills (research, teaching, writing research proposals) alongside a professor. These young researchers, at the beginning of their careers, often face difficulties when trying to transition from a postdoctoral position to a professorship. Many Greek researchers abroad are in this transitional phase of their career which can last for years. These postdoctoral researchers should be explicitly targeted for visiting professor positions as they have exceptional potential in research and innovation that Greece can benefit from.

According to the new law (article 171, par. 2 and 3), university departments can hire full-time or part-time visiting professors for one academic semester with the possibility of extension up to three academic years and renewal for another three years, after taking into account their performance. In this context, the new visiting professors will not only have enough time to pass on to the Greek university their subject matter expertise and the best practices in research and teaching, but also expose the Greek academic community to a global academic network .

Funding for their research (academic startup funds in line with Western Standards) can be sourced from either the Greek state, European Institutions of private organization (article 171, par. 4) and is necessary (no. 171, par. 5).

Currently, the law aims to conduct the hiring of such visiting professors in vacuum. However, we believe that the initiative should be expanded to include cluster hiring, whereby a group of 3-5 professors/researchers of the same or related scientific fields are hired jointly with the goal of interdisciplinary collaboration. As result, cluster hiring could create a strong core of excellence in local universities and introduce a new academic culture that will transform the academic landscape of the country in a short period of time.

Visiting professor appointments, if properly implemented, can serve as an alternative for postdoctoral researchers that currently spend years in stagnation. Beyond that, these appointments could also provide Greek universities with the opportunity to test young scientists who could potentially become permanent members of their staff . Therefore, a possible extension of visiting professor appointments could be a permanent teaching or research staff position depending on the performance of the participants. Of course, such an expansion requires a new legal framework with strict criteria and the successful implementation of visiting professor appointments within the Greek academic system.

Unlike established professors - who already hold a permanent academic position and have established ties at their place of residence - postdoctoral researchers are early stages of their careers and therefore more mobile. These young researchers who were forced into a great scientific exodus during the financial crisis can return home now that Greece is recovering and can become the driving force of domestic growth and innovation.