Georg Krücken (21 September 1962 – 7 October 2024) was a German sociologist and higher education researcher. He was director of the

International Center for Higher Education Research Kassel International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

(INCHER-Kassel) at the

University of Kassel The University of Kassel () is a university founded in 1971 located in Kassel, Hessen, in central Germany. As of February 2022 it had about 25,000 students and about 3300 staff, including more than 300 professors. A special unit (Studienkoll ...

Life and career

Born in

Bad Honnef Bad Honnef () is a spa town in Germany near Bonn in the Rhein-Sieg district, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the border of the neighbouring state Rhineland-Palatinate. To the north it lies on the slopes of the Drachenfels (Siebengebirge), ...

on 21 September 1962, Krücken studied sociology, philosophy and political science at the universities of

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region () of Detmold (region), Detmold and the L ...

and

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

from 1981 to 1989. With a scholarship from the

Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes The German Academic Scholarship Foundation (German: , or ''Studienstiftung'' for short) is Germany's largest and most prestigious scholarship foundation. According to its statutes, it supports "the university education of young people who, on ac ...

he earned his PhD in 1996 at the Faculty of Sociology in Bielefeld with a dissertation focused on Risk Transformation. Krücken habilitated in January 2004 in Bielefeld. From 1999 to 2001 he was visiting scholar at the Department of Sociology at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and in 2005 was visiting professor at the Center de Sociologie des Organisations. He returned to Stanford as a visiting scholar at the School of Education in the summer semester of 2011 and in 2016 completed a research semester as a visiting scholar at the

Sciences Po Sciences Po () or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies (), is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of ''grande école'' and the legal status of . The university's unde ...

, Center de Sociologie des Organisations in Paris. He was a regular guest lecturer at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. Between 2006 and 2011, Krücken held the first Chair of Science Organization, Higher Education and Science Management at the

German University of Administrative Sciences The German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer (German: ''Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer''; sometimes referred to as Speyer University), is a national graduate school for administrative sciences and public m ...

in Speyer, before joining the University of Kassel in 2011, where became director of the

(INCHER-Kassel). In 2014 he became chairman of the . In 2016 he was elected a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

. Krücken died of cancer on 7 October 2024, at the age of 62.

Research

In his research Krücken focused on higher education research and the

sociology of science The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociolo ...

. His special interests lie on the combination of

neo-institutionalism Neo institutionalism (also referred to as neo-institutionalist theory or institutionalism) is an approach to the study of institutions that focuses on the constraining and enabling effects of formal and informal rules on the behavior of individual ...

in organizational research with a macro-sociological view of the world. As both approaches are particularly based on American theory and research, Krücken adds European strands of

social theory Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories re ...

. His dissertation on the works of

John W. Meyer John Wilfred Meyer (born 1935) is an American sociologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present day, Meyer has contributed fundamental ideas to the field of sociology, especially in t ...

also contributed to the spread of neo-institutionalist approaches in Germany. In addition to many publications, his scientific work led to the European research network Institutionalism
in 2004, of which he was a co-founder and spokesman. It organizes annual scientific conferences in various European countries.

Books

''Higher Education in Germany—Recent Developments in an International Perspective''. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 2018 (together with mit Otto Hüther).

Gerhard Casper Gerhard Casper (born December 25, 1937) is a political scientist. He served as 9th president of Stanford University from 1992 to 2000, as the 8th dean of the University of Chicago Law School from 1979 to 1987, and as provost of the University of ...

, President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus,

, comments on this book: "The foreign observer of German higher education, even the informed foreign observer, struggles to find denominators, not to mention common denominators of a bewildering array of approaches. Otto Hüther and Georg Krücken, in this book, do an absolutely splendid job of offering theoretical perspectives, qualitative and quantitative data, and comparative assessments." ''New Themes in Institutional Analysis. Topics and Issues from European Research'' (edited together with Carmelo Mazza, Renate Meyer und Peter Walgenbach). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017, .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Krucken, Georg 1962 births 2024 deaths German sociologists Academic staff of the University of Kassel People from Bad Honnef