University of Siegen

uni_logoThe University of Siegen (USIEGEN) in Germany was founded in 1972 and has quickly developed into a center of quality research and teaching in the “three-border-region” of the states Hessen, Rhineland Palatine and North Rhine Westphalia, with approx. 16,800 enrolled students. It maintains extensive cooperation with numerous universities and research institutions all over the world and partnerships with over 130 European universities.

In LIVEWHAT, research work is conducted by the Department of Social Sciences that is part of the Faculty of Arts and an entity of advanced social research. Its core areas of research comprise six main topics, amongst them European Studies, Political Sociology and Social Problems, which are of immediate relevance for the livewhat project. It hosts a series of empirical research projects funded by institutions like the German Research Council, the Volkswagen-Stiftung, the European Commission, the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, and the German Academic Exchange Program, amongst others. Its dual PhD program on ‘European and Global Studies’ with the University of Lancaster promotes young scholars and provides opportunities for academic exchange between doctoral and post-doctoral researchers.

Members of the German team

LahusenProfessor Christian Lahusen is the principal investigator of the German team. He holds a Chair of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts. He studied in Düsseldorf and Madrid, received his PhD from the European University Institute (Florence), and received his habilitation from the University of Bamberg. His research interests include political sociology, European studies, labor markets and social exclusion. He has directed and participated in a number of national and international research projects on topics relating to contentious politics, civil society and social exclusion, most of them with a European and comparative perspective. His research has been funded by the German Research Council, the German Academic Exchange Program, the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, and the Ministry for Science and Education of North-Rhine Westphalia, among others. He was responsible for the German case study in the UNEMPOL project (EU FP5) and the YOUNEX project (EU FP7), and participated in the management committee. Publications include 12 books and edited collections, and more than 70 articles and book chapters.

For more information visit: http://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/sozialwissenschaften/soziologie/mitarbeiter/lahusen/?lang=de

passfotoJohannes Kiess is researcher in the German team. He studied political science, sociology and philosophy at the University of Leipzig and in Be’erSheba. His research interests include European studies, political theory and political sociology with a focus on right-wing extremism. Since 2010 he is involved in a long-term study on right-wing extremist attitudes in Germany. In his PhD project he investigates the conflictual basis of European societal integration.

For more information visit: http://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/sozialwissenschaften/soziologie/mitarbeiter/kiess_johannes/index.html?lang=en?lang=de.