| Wednesday, October 8, 2025 16.30 – 18.00 Room: P1 | |
| Panellists: Herbert Brücker, Lena Hipp, Juliane Seifert, Katharina Spiess Moderation: Marita Jacob |
Abstract:
This panel will discuss the potential and current relevance of sociological research for evidence-based policy advice. What criteria and standards must social research meet in order to serve as a basis for policy recommendations? What are the prerequisites for evidence-based results to be heard politically and incorporated into political decision-making processes? What are the obstacles to communicating and transferring scientific findings into policy? Why is the transfer more successful in some fields than in others? How do political decision-makers perceive the contribution of sociology to solving practical problems? These questions will be explored using the examples of two highly relevant fields of society, namely the education system and the labor market, and the challenges posed for these fields by contemporary migration processes. The panel will represent the perspectives of science, politics, and policy advice in the fields mentioned above.
Prof. Dr. Herbert Brücker is Professor of Economics at the Humboldt University of Berlin, head of the Department “Migration, Economics and Labor Markets” of the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM) and head of the research area “Migration, Integration and International Labor Market Research” at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg. He coordinates the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample and the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees together with his partners from SOEP, BAMF and IAB.
Prof. Lena Hipp, Ph.D. is professor of “Social Inequality and Social Policy” at the University of Potsdam and research professor of “Work, Family, and Social Inequality” at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). To study social inequalities related to work, gender, and care responsibilities, she draws on a broad repertoire of theoretical and methodological approaches. She has surveyed migrant 24-hour care-work using respondent-driven sampling. She uses experimental and computational approaches in a collaboration with one of the leading international care platforms to understand the sorting and matching processes in markets that are characterized by high trust requirements and, potentially, discrimination against non-traditional caregivers. Lena Hipp regularly engages in policy advising and has served as a member of the Berliner Familienbeirat since 2022. In November 2024, she received the “Research in Responsibility” award from the German Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft and the Leibniz Association for her groundbreaking scientific work.
Juliane Seifert, State Secretary a. D. (“außer Dienst”), served at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community from 2021 to 2025. Prior to that, she served from 2018 to 2021 as State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Women, Senior Citizens and Youth. She has also worked in various political and administrative roles on a federal and regional level, including as a technical director of the Social Democratic Party or in the state chancellery of Rheinland-Pfalz. She specializes in topics such as social integration, equal opportunities, and social participation; her expertise includes the integration of politics, science, and practice, as well as promoting inclusive and sustainable models of society
Prof. Dr. C. Katharina Spiess is Director of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). She holds the professorship of population economics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She studied economics at the University of Mannheim. In 1996, she earned her doctorate degree at Ruhr University in Bochum. In 2000, she moved to DIW Berlin, where she worked at the research-based infrastructure unit of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) until 2012. In 2005, she completed her habilitation (second thesis) at the Technical University of Berlin.
From 2006 to 2021, she held a University Professorship for Family and Education Economics at Freie Universität Berlin. She headed the Department of Education and Family at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) between 2012 and 2021. She was a guest professor at Cornell University, and a visiting scholar at the University of Washington Seattle and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Her research focuses on population studies, particularly on education and family issues. Her work has been published in well-known field journals, such as the Journal for Population Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Labour Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, and Economics of Education Review. She is a member of various research networks, expert groups, and commissions, including the Scientific Advisory Board for Family Issues at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs or the Advisory Board of the CRETE OECD Centre for Population Dynamics.
Prof. Dr. Marita Jacob is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on social inequalities in education, employment, and family life. She is particularly interested in how family background, gender, and ethnic origin influence educational decisions, how gender inequalities in the labor market relate to family dynamics, and most recently, how barriers to higher education access can be reduced through interventions such as counseling programs.
Her recent project on guidance counseling was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia. The project involved a large-scale field experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of a counseling program offered by universities (both traditional and universities of applied sciences). The research findings directly informed policy recommendations and contributed to the program’s expansion to currently 27 universities throughout North Rhine-Westphalia.