Prof. Wolfgang Seibel Becomes a Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences
20. July 2009
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences has selected for membership Konstanz policy and management scholar, Prof. Wolfgang Seibel.
The Rector of the University of Konstanz, Prof. Gerhart von Graevenitz, congratulates this renowned scholar on being accepted into the tradition-steeped academy: "What a great success! Wolfgang Seibel has distinguished himself through outstanding academic achievements. Beyond that, he has shaped public debate on the subjects of his research in a very active and committed fashion, the best example for this being the current discussion surrounding the Bologna Process. I hereby offer my sincere congratulations to Wolfgang Seibel, personally and on behalf of the University of Constance.” Until now, the University of Konstanz was represented in the Academy by psychologist and former rector Prof. Rudolf Cohen (emeritus), the physicist Prof. Klaus Dransfeld (emeritus), the literary scholar Prof. Renate Lachmann (emerita), the biologist Prof. Hubert Markl (emeritus) as well as the mathematician and computer scientist Prof. Volker Strassen (emeritus). Other members are Konstanz psychologist Prof. Brigitte Rockstroh, physicist Prof. Elke Scheer, and the physicist Prof. Paul Leiderer.
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in July 2009, was constituted in the tradition of the Palatine Academy established in 1763 by Elector Carl Theodor as the Baden Academy of Sciences. The Heidelberg Academy has remained true to its founding idea by bringing together outstanding national scholars and scientists for interdisciplinary discussions and joint research. The Academy sees itself both as a learned society and as a modern non-university research institute. It organizes academic conferences and public lectures, and it promotes the work of junior researchers. The Academy is divided into two sections, a philosophical-historical one and one for mathematics and the natural sciences. The Academy currently has 183 ordinary and 74 corresponding members. Almost all academic disciplines are represented in the Academy, whose focus is in the area of long-term primary research. In addition to a natural-scientific project on climatic fluctuations in the course of the earth’s history, the Academy contributes to the humanities and cultural sciences by publishing critical editions of the letters and writings of great thinkers, by producing scholarly dictionaries, and by supporting music-historical research -- all towards preserving our cultural heritage.
Prof. Wolfgang Seibel
Seibel studied political science as well as German languages and literature at the University of Marburg. After completing the state teaching exam in 1977, he graduated with a master's degree at the German University for Administrative Sciences in Speyer. As of 1979, he was working in Kassel and completed his doctorate at the university there in 1982, followed by his habilitation in 1988. Since 1990, he holds the chair for domestic policy and public administration at the University of Konstanz. Seibel’s areas of focus are the political science of organization and management research. Particular esteemed are his works on organizations of civil society, the nonprofit sector, and the role of the occupation administration in the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. In 1992, he was a visiting professor at the Institute für Höhere Studien in Vienna, and in 1994 at the University of California in Berkeley. On several occasions, most recently in 2003, he has been selected for membership in the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. From 2004 to 2005, Seibel was a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. Since 2005, he is also an adjunct professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. For many years, he was the chief editor of the leading German journal in the field, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, and he is a member of the editorial boards of leading international journals such as Public Administration Review, Public Administration, and the Journal of Civil Society. Wolfgang Seibel is also on the executive board of the Center of Excellence, "Cultural Foundations of Integration,” at the University of Konstanz.