About Me

Only your course has meaning.
Going somewhere matters, not getting somewhere;
because you get nowhere apart from death.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

About Me

Since 2002 I am doing sustainability research for a living. My research focuses on sustainability science, degrowth, sustainable business models, organizational change and open innvoation, industrial ecology, civil society involvment, social systems theory and studies on the next society.

After finishing my studies in Management and Economics, earning myself a University degree (Diplom-Kaufmann), I embarked on a doctoral project in the field of regional sustainability and social networks consisting of heterogeneous actors from various different fields (economy, politics, civil society, science, etc.). At the same time I was working at the Institute of Economics and Law at the Universität Stuttgart in Germany as a scientific assistant, teaching undergraduate courses in macroeconomics as well as postgraduate courses in environmental resource economics and economic growth and innovation. From 2007 until 2011 I had a post-doc position, first at the Department of Strategic Management with Erich Zahn, then at the Graduate School for advanced Manufacturing Engineering (GSaME) of Engelbert Westkämper, both at Universität Stuttgart.

Currently, I hold the position of a research fellow at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Here, on the shores of beautiful Lake Constance/Bodensee I am responsible for coordinating the research fields of “Degrowth & Business” as well as “System Theory & Sustainability” at the newly founded European Center for Sustainability Research ECS led by Nico Stehr.

Apart from my research at university, I am leading an FP7 project at Ortwin Renn’s private research institute, Dialogik gGmbH, focusing on the role and involvment of civil society for the research on sustainable development called CSS, with partners from Germany, France, Hungary and Slovenia.

Outside of academia, I am a member of the German Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and since 2004 hold a mandate in the Stuttgart Regional Assembly.