Short bio

Since 2012 I have been Professor of European Integration and European Policy at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen and holder of an ad personam Jean Monnet Chair. Currently I am also Vice Dean for Research and Young Researchers at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Besides a Visiting Fellowship at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht, a visiting professorship at the College of Europe in Bruges and at the Turkish-German University in Istanbul, I am honorary board member of TEPSA (Trans European Policy Studies Association), member of the board of the "Arbeitskreis Europäische Integration", and member of the scientific board of the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in Berlin.

Since 2018 I head the Network European Studies for NRW (NEW:NRW), whose goal is to organize expert councils as well as symposia to advise the government of North Rhine-Westphalia on all European policy issues. In cooperation with Dr. Katrin Böttger (IEP Berlin), I have been leading the H2020 project SEnECA since October 2017. In the next two years, SEnECA will focus on the reorientation of EU-Central Asia relations. I am also the initiator of the NRW-wide, cross-university debating format "NRW debattiert Europa", in which bachelor and master students from NRW have the opportunity to discuss the Europe of the future. In 2016 I received the PADEMIA Teaching Award for this project and in 2019 I was nominated for the "NRW Lehrpreis".

In recent years I have also been co-editor of the Journal of European Integration (JEI). Since spring 2018 I have been a member of the advisory board of Research & Politics. Between 2018-2020 I am also head of the working group "Thinking Europe politically" in the "Kolleg Europa" of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes e.V., the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

My aim is to critically and constructively accompany and explain the process of European integration, the shaping of European policy and Europe's influence on the member states.