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Stefan Liebig, new board member at the German Institute for Economic Research as of 2018

Press Release of December 1, 2017

On January 1, 2018, Liebig will become director of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a member of the institute’s Executive Board

Stefan Liebig, a professor of sociology at Bielefeld University, will succeed Gert G. Wagner as a member of the German Institute for Economic Research’s Executive Board on January 1, 2018. Having reached retirement age, Wagner (64) is relinquishing his position. Fellow Executive Board members Marcel Fratzscher and Angelica E. Röhr will continue as president and managing director, respectively. At the beginning of 2018, Liebig will also take over as director of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) research infrastructure at DIW Berlin. Jürgen Schupp, the current director, will remain at SOEP as its deputy director and Gert G. Wagner will join as “Visiting Senior Research Fellow.”

A research fellow at SOEP since 2007, Liebig (54) has used SOEP-generated data in his research for many years. His work focuses on perceptions of social inequality and the analysis of social structures. He is a member of the German Data Forum (Rat für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten, RatSWD) and the Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures (Rat für Informationsinfrastrukturen, RfII). He has been a professor at Bielefeld University since 2008. After receiving his habilitation teaching qualification from LMU Munich in 2004, Liebig taught at Trier University and the University of Duisburg-Essen.

“I am very pleased that we were able to acquire Stefan Liebig as a second scientific member of the Executive Board and that, together with Jürgen Schupp, he will further enhance SOEP, an extraordinarily successful research infrastructure,” said Axel Weber, chairman of the institute’s Board of Trustees. “I would also like to thank Gert G. Wagner for his tireless commitment to SOEP and DIW Berlin.”

President Marcel Fratzscher of DIW Berlin commented, “In Stefan Liebig, we have been able to acquire an outstanding scientist for the DIW Berlin Executive Board and SOEP. I look forward to his arrival and at the same time would like to express my gratitude to Gert G. Wagner for our excellent collaboration over the past years.”

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