Frank Gerlach

Frank Gerlach joins the IES as a Visiting Scholar during the 2009 fall term  to work on the Twenty Years Later project. Prof. Gerlach specializes in economics, particulalry innovation and labour markets. His most recent projects covered themes such as "globalisation, the economic process of the unification in Germany and in Europe and regional, structural and innovation policy."

For more details view Prof. Gerlach's CV .

Karin Schittenhelm

Karin Schittenhelm is Professor of Sociology at the University of Siegen, Germany and she joins the IES as a member of the SSHRC Cluster Transatlantic Dialogue program. She has taught at Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin and has been a Fellow at the Institute of Research on Contemporary Societies (CNRS) in Paris. Her research interests include migration research, political culture and collective memory, education and work in the life course, and methods of empirical research.

Her current research concerns a qualitative investigation on the labor market integration of highly skilled immigrants in Germany, Great Britain, Turkey and Canada, carried out by an international study group (entitled: Cultural Capital during Migration). Her focus is on the impact of social networks and group formation upon immigrant’s labor market integration and on the second generation’s trajectories in education and work. She is also working on theoretical concepts and methodological issues of comparative research on immigrant societies.

Hans-Gerd Ridder

Dr. Hans-Gerd Ridder is Professor at the Leibniz University of Hanover (Germany), Faculty of Business Administration.  He is educated in Management Sciences and responsible for Business Administration and Human Resource Management. He has held guest professorships in Innsbruck and Vienna (Austria).

His research interests include Strategic Human Resource Management, Nonprofit and Public Management. Current research projects focus on change processes in public and nonprofit organizations. He has recently published on case study research, the implementation of Accrual Accounting in German Municipalities, and the implementation of Diagnosis Related Groups in hospitals.

Niels Klabunde

Niels Klabunde is a visiting PhD research student and Hans-Boekler Fellow from Humboldt University Berlin. His research project is an interdisciplinary cross-case comparison study that looks at the processes and policies of integrating international students at universities in Canada and Germany. Doing fieldwork at UBC, his goal is to get a deeper understanding of the influencing factors on integration as well as to make suggestions to amend, extend or change current practices, programs or policies./

The research can be seen within the context of the growing competition in higher education and the need for Germany and Canada to attract and retain young and talented high skilled workers for their labor markets. At first the research compares the policy background, then it will look in depth at two case studies, using key informant interviews, focus groups and observations in order to help to get insight into the underlying processes.

For questions and comments feel free to contact Niels Klabunde at nklabund@interchange.ubc.ca or 604-710-8304.

Gerd Grözinger

Prof. Gerd  Grözinger will be visiting the IES in October of 2008. Prof.  Grözinger is currently the Senior Researcher and Scientific Director Research on Social and Educational Policies, Governance, Regional Economics at the Universität Flensburg, Collegium Mare Balticum i. Gr..

He is also the German Co-ordinator of the newly established European Studies program at the universities of Flensburg and Sonderburg.

Prof. Grözinger obtained his Ph.D. in Economics in 1989 (Summa Cum Laude with the thesis on the implementation of an input-output-system for the Federal Republic of Germany) at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt. Prior to his Ph.D. he completed his   M.A. in Sociology (Magna Cum Laude with the thesis on the sociological debate of suicide).

Groezinger: Twenty Years Later Research Proposal

Stefan Krätke

Prof. Stefan Krätke is the Chair of Economic and Social Geography, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. Through his academic career he specialized in Urban Planning and regional economics, graduating with a PhD  (Berlin) "Summa Cum Laude" in 1981.

Since 1994, he has been the Chair of Economic and Social Geography, European University Viadrina. Prof. Krätke will be at the IES for the month of September, contributing to the newly launched Twenty Year Later research project.

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Ton Nijhuis

Prof. Nijhuis is the Academic Director of the Duitsland Instituut of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (DIA), an independent research and teaching institute concerned with the politics, economy and history of Germany from a Dutch perspective.

Prof. Nijhuis researches how the Federal Republic has played a central role in the process of European integration. Conversely, the EU also had a great impact on the development of the German state. The European integration provided Germany with an institutional framework to rebuild its economy, regain its international standing and establish excellent ties with its European neighbours. Beside these "environmental" goals, “Europe” also became an essential element of Germany’s post-war political culture. While there are a number of obvious benefits which the EU membership has brought for Germany, the EU membership has also more recently presented the country with a number of challenges.

In this research project, Prof. Nijhuis will  explore the role of Germany in the EU, assess whether the country’s current European policy has changed after Unification, and investigate how changes in the perception of Europe are related to a changing political culture.

Francisco Colom

Dr. Colom is a Researcher at the Centre for Human and Social Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council (C.S.I.C.). He is presently developing a project called “Intercultural Justice. Cultures, Norms and Subjects in Pluralist Societies”. During his time at the Institute for European Studies he will be reviewing contemporary Canadian experiences with legal pluralism, basically the incorporation of aboriginal customary law into the Canadian judicial system and the use of faith-based arbitration boards in Ontario. He is focusing on the relationship of these practices with the normative reasoning encouraged by the multicultural principles of Canadian constitutionalism and comparing them with European practices in the management of ethno-cultural complexity.

Dietmar Schirmer

After spending two years teaching, researching, writing and also supervising several thesis projects at the IES, Prof. Schirmer  will in the fall of 2009 be starting a new teaching position at the University of Florida Department of Political Science.

Dietmar Schirmer, Ph.d. in Political Science from Free University Berlin, 1990, has taught at Free University Berlin, University of Vienna (2004), and at Cornell (1998-2003), and has been a Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., from 1992-1995. Area specialization in Europe. Publications on nationalism and the state, political culture, and political aesthetics. Current research: The Aesthetics of Power: Architecture and the State in Europe since the Renaissance (completed, preparing for publication); The European Union as Form of State; De-provincializing Europe: Comparative Perspectives on European Integration.

Stefan Gänzle

Stefan Gänzle was an Assistant Professor (DAAD), jointly at the Institute of European Studies (Faculty of Graduate Studies) and the Department of Political Science (Faculty of Arts). In 2008, Prof. Gänzle accepted a research position at the German Development Institute. Prof. Gänzle received his Ph.D. from the University of Jena in Germany in 2003; His dissertation examines the impact of the European Union on potential conflicts between the Baltic States and the Russian Federation. His research interests lie in the field of European integration as well as European security. Before joining UBC in 2004 he was a research fellow at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, the European University Institute (Florence) and a researcher-in-residence at the OSCE (Prague/Vienna).