Expert Council

Expert Advice on Migration and Integration

Council Members

The members of the Expert Council are appointed for three years
The current Council members:

Prof. Dr. Hans Vorländer

Chairperson of the Expert Council
Institute of Political Science at the Dresden University of Technology

Hans Vorländer is Director of the Mercator Forum on Migration and Democracy (MIDEM), founded in 2017, and of the Centre for the Study of Constitutionalism and Democracy at the Dresden University of Technology (TUD). From 1993 until 2020 he held the Chair of Political Theory and the History of Political Thought at Technische Universität Dresden. Hans Vorländer is an advisor in various expert commissions and is co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft. His work focuses on political theory, constitutionalism and constitution, democracy, populism, and migration and integration.

Professional background:

  • Studies in Law, Political Science and Philosophy at the Universities of Bonn and Geneva, 1975–1980
  • Ph. D. degree at the University of Bonn, 1980
  • Research Associate and Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass./USA) in 1984/85 and in 1986/87
  • Professor of Political Science at the University of Dresden (Chair for Political Theory and the History of Political Ideas), since 1993
  • Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Senator at the University of Dresden, 1997–2000
  • President of the German Association of Political Science, 2001–2003
  • Visiting Professor and Directeur d’études at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 2001 and 2006
  • Chairman of the Scientific Council of the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, 2001–2005
  • Deputy Speaker of the Collaborative Research Center 537 “Institutionalität und Geschichtlichkeit/Institutionality and Historicity”, 2000–2008
  • Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism and Democracy, since 2007
  • Founder and Speaker/Chairman of the Collaborative Research Center 804 “Transzendenz und Gemeinsinn/Transcendence and Common Sense” at the Technische Universität Dresden, 2009–2014
  • Visiting Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and at the Instituto Technológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Mexico City, 2010
  • Founder and Director of the Mercator Forum on Migration and Democracy, funded by the Mercator Foundation, since 2017