Two members appointed to the University Advisory Board

Prof. Dr. Birgitt Riegraf is Professor of General Sociology and was President of Paderborn University from April 2018 to 31 March 2025, Vice President for Studies, Teaching and Quality Development from 2015 to 2018 and before that Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Cultural Studies at Paderborn University. Riegraf is involved in numerous science and higher education policy committees, including as a founding member of the German Agency for Technology and Innovation (DATI). She received her doctorate from the Otto Suhr Institute at the Free University of Berlin in 1995 and habilitated at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University in 2004. She has held visiting professorships at the Carolo-Wilhelmina University of Technology in Braunschweig and the Georg August University in Göttingen. Riegraf studied political science, sociology, psychology and religious studies as well as the interdisciplinary supplementary course "Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences" at the Free University of Berlin. Her areas of work and research include science and higher education studies, sociological theory and gender studies, sociology of inequality and intersectionality research, method and methodology and sociology of the state, work and organization.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Urban has been a managing board member of IG Metall since 2007, responsible for social policy as well as health protection and work organization, and since 2011 also responsible for general social and labour market policy as well as work organization and qualification policy. Since 2008, he has been a member and (since 2011) Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Salzgitter AG Stahl und Technologie. He has been an honorary judge at the Federal Labor Court (BAG) in Erfurt since 2020. Urban studied political science, economics and philosophy at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen and the Philipps-Universität Marburg, where he graduated with a degree in political science in 1989. In 2003, he received his doctorate there in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy. This was followed in 2014 by his habilitation and the award of a teaching qualification and teaching license (venia legendi) for the subject of sociology by the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. In June 2023, he was appointed Honorary Professor of Sociology there.

University President Prof. Dr. Ute Clement commented: "We are very pleased that we have been able to appoint two people with such many years of experience in important socio-political areas to the University Advisory Board."

Background:

The University Advisory Board accompanies the university in its development, articulates the expectations existing in the professional world and promotes the use of scientific knowledge and artistic achievements. The University Advisory Board has a right of initiative on fundamental university matters and must approve development planning. It makes recommendations on course planning, evaluation procedures, target agreements, knowledge transfer as well as the appropriate and efficient administration and use of funds. It gives its opinion on the university's basic regulations, statement of accounts, budget planning, the establishment and discontinuation of degree programmes and the division of the university into Faculties. The University Advisory Board consists of up to ten people from business, professional practice and the fields of science and art. The members are appointed by the HMWK and half are nominated by the university and half by the ministry.