Professor Dirk Leuffen

Prof. Dirk Leuffen is the Vice Rector for Research, Innovation and Impact. In this function, he also takes responsibility for the governance of the University of Konstanz’ research infrastructures.


Ex officio the Vice Rector is a member of the Rectorate and the University Senate, as well as an advisory member of the University Council. He chairs the university’s Committee on Research (AFF), the Commission on External Research Funding, the Advisory Board for Technical Services and the Animal Research Facility, as well as the University’s Election Committee. Leuffen is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Zukunftskolleg, a member of the Advisory Board for the Social Science Archive Konstanz (SAK), and represents the rectorate in the Board of the Cluster of Excellence "Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour" and the Extended Board of the Centre for Cultural Inquiry (ZKF). Leuffen takes charge of Konstanz-related activities in the Young European Research Universities Network (YERUN).

Short bio
When not working as an administrator, Dirk Leuffen heads the research group on international politics at the Department of Politics and Public Administration. His group analyses European Politics and Integration, and holds a strong passion for political preference formation and decision-making processes. He currently is a Principal Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality". Before joining the University of Konstanz, Leuffen worked as a Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Mannheim.

From 2015 to 2019, Dirk Leuffen served a first term as the University of Konstanz’ Vice Rector for Research and Academic Staff Development. Since 2019 he is a representative of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) in the Committee for the selection and evaluation of International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS).