Skip to content!

SOEP mourns loss of former SOEP Director Wolfgang Zapf

Personnel news of May 8, 2018

Wolfgang Zapf, former SOEP Director and longtime supporter and advocate for the SOEP, passed away in late April at the age of 81.

Wolfgang Zapf was instrumental in the founding of the SOEP study in the early 1980s, together with colleagues in the fields of sociology and economics. He has had an enduring influence on the measurement concepts used in the SOEP, and his quality of life concept has become a become central to SOEP longitudinal study. When Hans-Jürgen Krupp left DIW Berlin in 1988, Wolfgang Zapf took on the responsibilities of interim director without question—despite his extensive responsibilities as President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center—in characteristic solidarity with what was then the SOEP project group based at DIW Berlin. He went on to serve for many years as a member of the SOEP Advisory Board, providing advice and expertise to the panel project. 

keyboard_arrow_up