Academically, Prof. Dr. Thomas Heberer has been involved with China for over 50 years, first visiting the country in 1975 and working as an editor and translator at the Foreign Language Publishing House in Beijing from 1977 to 1981. Early 2013 he was emerited. The rector of the University of Duisburg-Essen simultaneously awarded him a “Senior professorship” for Chinese Politics and Society. Since then, he has continued to be active primarily in basic research. Within the framework of his senior professorship, the previous focal areas of research are being continued, especially the connection with field research he conducted in China on an almost annual basis since 1981.

The third-party funded projects carried recently out by him are the French-German DFG/ANR-sponsored project New Political Representative Claims: A Global View (Brazil, China, India, France & Germany) (2016–2020) as well as the policy advisory project Socio-political-Economic Accompanying Research on the Integration of the City of Duisburg, the Ruhr Area and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia into the ‘Belt-and-Road’ Initiative (2021–2024), see also the full list of research projects.

Currently, Thomas Heberer is working on social disciplining and civilizing in the context of China’s modernization processes. The results of all projects are well documented in a multitude of publications. Cooperation with many partners in Germany and abroad are an important base of the research projects.