My Biography

My entry into the academic world

I entered the academic world early after my studies in Marburg / Lahn. After studying geography, ethnology and geology, my focus was on urban and regional development. From 2000 I broadened my horizons with an international master’s degree in Urban Studies at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

In 2006 I completed my doctorate in human geography at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt on Main. I feel at home in the planning, spatial and social sciences. Starting in 2010, I expanded this field to include management and organizational sciences and in 2017, I presented a habilitation on configurations of value creation at the University of Leipzig. I have been a private docent. there since 2017.

Facts, facts, facts

To date I have written 4 monographs, 6 anthologies, 35 peer-reviewed international academic articles and about 70 German and English academic articles. My academic texts have been translated into Chinese, French and Spanish. I have written a further 35 expert reports for ministries and the European Commission as well as for local authorities and companies. Since 2006, I have been reviewing 8-10 academic texts annually for approx. 30 international specialist journals. See my complete list of publications and further facts.

My tasks and functions

In addition to my work as a private docent for human geography at the University of Leipzig and my visiting professorships (Berlin, Vechta), I hold several positions: member of the jury of the Swedish selection committee Formas, board member of the international journal “Journal of Culture and Creative Industries”, member of the Georg-Simmel-Centre für Metropolitan Studies at Humboldt-University Berlin.

My company foundation

Since 2008 I have extended my professional life by the development of a company. Its name is Multiplicities-Berlin (website), an independent research and consulting company. Our expertise is in urban and regional development. Our research and consulting services give orientation to individuals and creative businesses, and thereby help them to better cope with transformations.
Out office is located in the center of Berlin, in the Ballroom, close to Hackescher Markt and operates internationally. We cooperate throughout Europe with urban planning offices, cities, municipalities and ministries. With our projects, we are committed to a quality-driven future for people in cities and regions. I am a member of the Chamber of Commerce Creative Industries Committee in Berlin.

What shapes me? Where do I feel comfortable?

I come from a small town at Lake Constance and, like so many others, wanted to move from the south of Germany to a big city. It became Berlin. So far so good. I feel at home in many neighbourhoods and quarters in European cities suitable for cycling. So also in the countryside and away from the urban “hot spots” and the “cool places”.

What is important to me?

For a long time, science was a lone fighter. I am of the opinion that cooperation and collaboration are more important for me today. Not only in science, but above all in strengthening the common good. This also applies to our project work with colleagues, students, citizens and clients. It is time to get people to work together more and not to compete against each other. I think that cooperation – not competition – is what makes the world fit for the future and can drive it forward.

What are I am working on? How do I support and advise customers?

Co-Creation matters, but it has to be delivered.
Process matters, but results count!

For a long time, knowledge and practical transfer were both a burden and a pleasure for scientists. Sciences goes public! Transfer into society was the credo, since my work in the city planning office Frankfurt on Main started in 1999 and further promoted by the applied orientation of the Leibniz Institutes.

Collaboration and cooperation are the cornerstones of our independent work attitude today: We work in partnership with customers and work with them to produce lasting results that are fit for the future. This results in several years of cooperative partnerships with municipalities, ministries and regions.

Thematically, we are curious to find out how digital change is changing the social operating system and how it is realigning it to the interaction of different people, companies and stakeholders. New social and cultural technologies must then be invented in order to master this technological change. Places and spaces are important for this. It takes places of togetherness to define spaces for the future. Take a look at our projects.

What am I researching? A short chronological outline

Between 2006 and 2010, I worked as a post-doc with a research group at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography as part of the EU-funded research project ACRE, working on answers to the questions of the creative class. It was about a critical examination of the theses of the US regional economist Richard Florida on the so-called Creative Class and its increasing importance as a location factor.

Since 2010, I have been asking myself how the music industry is reorganizing itself. Especially in this part of the culture and creative industries, structural restructuring processes and the effects of digitization as well as new locational patterns of value creation can be seen.

Between 2011 and 2012, I and research colleagues from the disciplines of geography and business administration as well as organizational sociology introduced the term sonic capital into the discussion. We attempted to understand how forms of value creation in the music industry are simultaneously reflected in space and time dynamics.

This research approach has been shaped above all by the fact that transdisciplinary perspectives from management and organisational sciences have been increasingly taken up and made fruitful for human geography (and vice versa). My theoretical work on the role of the social field and its influence on the configuration of market-relevant events, the so-called field-configuring events, dates from this period.

As a member of the German Research-funded network “Scientific Network Field-Configuring Events” (at the chair of Prof. Sydow/Prof. Schüssler, FU Berlin) I was able to profitably expand the conceptual interfaces to neighbouring disciplines such as organisational sciences, economic sociology and management studies for my work.

Since 2013 and increasingly from 2014, I have been applying my spatial science findings to other subject areas. In cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institutes UMSICHT in Oberhausen and ISI in Karlsruhe, the Institute for Ecological Economy Research IÖW in Berlin and the University of Bremen, the research project COWERK on new terms, concepts and criteria of value creation configuration in so-called open workshops.

Since 2017 I have been a member of the working group Degrowth Economies at the ARL.

Please contact me if you have any questions. I will be pleased to support you.

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