Professor Bernhard Ebbinghaus

Dr Bernhard Ebbinghaus is Professor of Sociology at the Chair of Macrosociology, University of Mannheim, Germany.

From 2017 until 2020 he had been Professor of Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and Senior Research Fellow, Green Templeton College and Associate Member of Nuffield College at University of Oxford. Professor Ebbinghaus was Head of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI), University of Oxford, from October 2017 until December 2020.

Professor Ebbinghaus was OxPo Fellow at CEE Sciences Po Paris in September 2021. 

From November 2021 until February 2023 Professor Ebbinghaus was member of the European Commission’s High-Level Group on High-Level Group on the future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU.

Professor Ebbinghaus was co-PI of the @DSPI_Oxford Supertracker, a directory of Covid-19 policy response trackers.

Previously, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Mannheim, Germany (2004-2016). At Mannheim, he served as Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), Co-director of the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS) and Board Member of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 884) “Political Economy of Reform”.

Professor Ebbinghaus had co-directed the SFB-project on “Welfare State Reforms from Below: Linking Individual Attitudes and Organized Interests in Europe” at University of Mannheim. Among many publications, the project led to an edited volume: Bernhard Ebbinghaus & Elias Naumann (eds.) Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below: Comparing Public Attitudes and Organized Interests in Britain and Germany. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 (hardcover); Springer Online (e-book).

He also led together with Prof. Dr. J. Timo Weishaupt (Uni Göttingen) the DFG Project on “Crisis Corporatism or Corporatism in Crisis” at MZES. Publication: Ebbinghaus, Bernhard and J. Timo Weishaupt (eds.) (2021) The Role of Social Partners in Managing Europe’s Great Recession: Crisis Corporatism or Corporatism in Crisis? Abingdon: Routledge (hardcover)/(e-book).

Professor Ebbinghaus holds a PhD in social and political sciences (1993) from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy and was awarded a Habilitation in sociology (2003) from the University of Cologne, Germany. He was Lecturer (1992-1996) at University of Mannheim and Senior Researcher (1997-2003) at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University and Hertie School of Governance Berlin; and guest professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Jena, University of Luxembourg, and University of Vienna.