Bielefeld Science Award
Selection Committee
Professor Angelika Epple (Head of Selection Committee)
Professor of General History at Bielefeld University since 2008 and Rector of Bielefeld University since October 2023.
Professor of Public Law, German and International Social Law and Comparative Law at Bielefeld University since 1998. 2011-2015 Managing Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF).
Elena Esposito is a professor of sociology at Bielefeld University and the University of Bologna. As a representative of sociological systems theory, Esposito has published numerous works on social theory, media theory, memory theory and the sociology of financial markets. She is a profound expert on Niklas Luhmann and his work, not only because she completed her doctorate under him in 1990.
Prof. Dr. Oliver Flügel-Martinsen
Prof. Dr. Oliver Flügel-Martinsen is Professor of Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Faculty of Sociology and has also been Dean since 2024. His research interests include political philosophy, theory and history of ideas, democratic theory (especially theories of radical democracy), German idealism (especially Kant and Hegel) and 19th-century philosophy (especially Marx and Nietzsche), 20th-century and contemporary French philosophy.
Professor Giovanni Galizia (and here)
Professor of Neurobiology and Zoology at the University of Konstanz, Director of the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz and Permanent Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, responsible for the feature section, and former university assistant to Niklas Luhmann at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University.
Advisory Members
Dr. Christiana Bauer
Mayor of the City of Bielefeld from 1 November 2025
Jennifer Erdmann
Since 2025 chairwoman of the board of Sparkasse Bielefeld and its foundation.