The University of Bremen mourns Professor Stephan Leibfried. “It was a great shock to learn about the sudden death of Stephan Leibfried. He leaves a big gap at the University of Bremen. As an outstanding scientist, he was instrumental in the success of our university to the end”, says Professor Bernd Scholz-Reiter, President of the University of Bremen.
The social scientist died on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, at the age of 74 years. Stephan Leibfried was associated with the University of Bremen for many years. After studying political science and law in Berlin, he obtained his doctorate here in Bremen in 1972. In 1974 he was appointed to a professorship with a focus on social policy and social administration. Fourteen years later, he was one of the founders of the Center for Social Policy, which has since become part of the SOCIUM Research Center for Inequality and Social Policy at the University of Bremen. Leibfried was also responsible for various collaborative research centers (CRC) in the social sciences at the University of Bremen. Until 2014, he was the spokesman for the CRC 'Statehood in Transition'. Stephan Leibfried was strongly committed to the advancement of early-career researchers. In 2001, he campaigned for the founding of the Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS). He supported the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), which the University of Bremen has been running together with Jacobs University since 2007, with just as much dedication.
A universal scholar of the social sciences
In everything Stephan Leibfried did for the social sciences at the University of Bremen, he always adopted a universal perspective. His brainchild and greatest wish was to unite different social science disciplines under one roof. In 2014, Stephan Leibfried received the Schader Foundation Award for his life's work. “Stephan Leibfried has shaped the social sciences at our university intellectually and institutionally for more than three decades. With his whole personality, he has incessantly worked for interdisciplinary cooperation, sustainable research infrastructures, internationalization and innovative measures for the advancement of young researchers – often far ahead of national science policy. His firm conviction that the social sciences are the key to understanding the state and society in transition and his wit will be missed,” says Professor Karin Gottschall, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Bremen.
Members of the press please note: A photo of Professor Stephan Leibfried can be downloaded under the following link: https://seafile.zfn.uni-bremen.de/f/4595ad2c2da14876b975/.
More information under:
http://www.socium.uni-bremen.de/ueber-das-socium/mitglieder/stephan-leibfried/
