Distinguished Global Fellowship

Nico Stehr is a German sociologist internationally recognized for his pioneering work on the role of knowledge in modern society. He earned his PhD in Sociology from the University of Oregon in 1970 and spent a large part of his academic career in the United States and Canada. From 1979 to 1997, he served as a Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta, and founded the Canadian Journal of Sociology, serving as its editor for many years. Following a series of visiting appointments across Europe in the 1980s and 1990s – including in Zurich and Munich – Stehr returned to Europe around the turn of the millennium. In 2002 - 2003, he served as Paul F. Lazarsfeld Professor at the University of Vienna. From 2004 to 2018, he held the Karl Mannheim Professorship for Cultural Studies at Zeppelin University, where he founded the European Center for Sustainability Research in 2011. Beyond his influential work on the knowledge society and knowledge capitalism, Stehr has made significant contributions to the research on the relationship between science and politics, particularly in the context of climate change – and explores the societal causes and consequences coming with it.

Manfred B. Steger is Professor of Global and Transnational Sociology at the University of Hawaii-Mānoa. Manfred is the celebrated author of numerous books on globalization such as The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror (Oxford University Press, 2008); Globalism: Facing the Populist Challenge (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), What Is Global Studies? Theory & Practice (Routledge, 2017), and Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His bestseller Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2003) has been translated into 22 languages. Manfred is also the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Global Studies (Oxford University Press 2018) and in the editorial board of specialized journals such as Globalizations and Global-e.