Hendrik Schäfer

Hendrik Schäfer is reading for the MSc in Comparative Social Policy, with a focus on political economy and comparative quantitative methods.

His research, supervised by Professor Jane Gingrich, asks why some European regions successfully upgrade to high-tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services while others fall behind. Using patent data from 233 regions across sixteen Western European countries, he investigates how technological change creates different skill coordination problems under high uncertainty for both firms and workers. By modelling distinct games, he analyses which institutions can solve these problems and enable regions to move into more advanced production. His findings contribute to debates on place-based industrial policy and regional inequality.

Before Oxford, Hendrik worked as a policy advisor in the German Bundestag, where he supported the parliamentary work of a Member of Parliament in the field of health policy. He also worked at a health-tech start-up in Berlin.

Hendrik holds a BSc in Economics and Political Science from the University of Potsdam and an MA in European Studies from Humboldt University Berlin and the University of Bath.

Hendrik can be reached through LinkedIn.