Theme Day Social Sciences

Michael Böcher is professor of political science at the department of social sciences at Magdeburg University. His work focuses on sustainability research, e.g. in the areas of climate, environmental, and forestation politics, as well as on knowledge transfer and scientific policy consultation. Additionally, he has been working as a political advisor for institutes inside and outside Germany for more than 15 years. He is a member of the Bioeconomy Council of the German Federal Government and a member of the scientific climate protection council of Sachsen-Anhalt.

Between 2020 and 2022 Professor Dr Reimer Gronemeyer headed a 3-year research project, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, at JLU’s department of sociology, wherein causes for the massive workforce fluctuation in the Ethiopian textile industry were examined. Currently, he is heading a research project on “Demenz und gesellschaftliche Teilhabe (Dementia and social participation)” (DFG, 2023-2025).

Jakob Lundgren is a researcher in Theory of Science. His research interests include boundary crossing in science and the relation between science and the broader society. His thesis investigates collaborative judgments of scientific quality in transdisciplinary contexts. 

Professor Dr Daniel Mertens (University of Osnabrück)

Daniel Mertens is Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Osnabrück. His research interests include the social dimensions of climate finance in the Climate Finance Society project network, the political economy preconditions of decarbonization, and the European Green Deal. He is, among other things, co-author of a new textbook "Political Economy" (Springer 2023) and a volume on the role of investment banks in European industrial policy (Oxford 2021).

Dr Sandra Schwindenhammer is the deputy coordinator and sub-project leader of the BMBF funded research project “SUSKULT: Entwicklung eines nachhaltigen Kultivierungssystems für Nahrungsmittel resilienter Metropolregionen“ (https://suskult.de/) at JLU Giessen’s department of social sciences. She is the spokesperson for the working group „Umweltpolitik und Global Change“ of the German Political Science Association and her research focuses on topics of sustainability transformation and norms (Sustainable Development Goals), (urban) agricultural systems of the future, as well as sustainability, nutrition and agriculture politics.

Stefan Wahlen is professor of food sociology at Justus Liebig University Giessen. He studied Food and Household Studies at the University of Bonn and did his PhD at the Chair of Consumer Economics at Helsinki University (Finland). Following this, he worked at the chair for Sociology of Consumption and Households at Wageningen University (NL). His research focuses on sustainable food culture and eating in the sense of doing food, as well as on as well as organisational and socio-political dimensions of sustainable food systems, e.g. the influence of social movements.

Benjamin Bunk holds a PhD in educational science on the subject of "Formation of the Self and Social Movements" at the interface to sociology and political science (FSU Jena), was a junior fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (University of Erfurt) and ventured with a Feodor Lynen research scholarship for research and field stays to Brazil (sociology) and Finland (political science) about urban waste-picker and rural landless communities. He is currently working in the interdisciplinary DFG research group “Human Rights Discourse in Migration Societies” (MeDiMi) as a research assistant at the Chair of in educational science and youth studies (JLU Gießen). Benjamin Bunk is engaged in Thuringia in the On-World-Context since a long time, was active in various education policy committees there and is currently a juror for the UN Decade "Education for Sustainable Development" of the German UNESCO Commission.