A Blog by the Research group Governance, Participation & Sustainability at Leuphana University
Michael Rose
Michael Rose has been affiliated as senior researcher and lecturer with the research group on governance, participation and sustainability since December 2018. In November 2025, he moved to the Center for the Study of Democracy at Leuphana University Lüneburg to research, coordinate and teach in the Key Subject Area “Democratic Resilience: Democracy’s Sustainability in the Global Polycrisis Era.” In the winter term 2024/25, he was an administrative professor (interim professor) for governance and sustainability at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He holds a Dr. phil. (equivalent to PhD) from the University of Düsseldorf and a diploma (equivalent to master’s degree) from the University of Bamberg, both in political science. Michael is associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning and co-convener of the Earth System Governance Taskforce on Knowledge Cumulation.
Picture: (c)Brinkhoff-Mögenburg/Leuphana
Before joining Leuphana University, he worked as a researcher and scientific coordinator of the Center for Transformation Research and Sustainability (transzent) at the University of Wuppertal. Adopting a broad political science perspective, Michael’s research focusses on the political aspects of sustainable development and the sustainability aspects of politics. The question of how the interests of future generations can be institutionally considered in present-day democracy both in theory and in practice has driven his research since his doctoral thesis on proxy representation. Since his work at transzent in Wuppertal, he also engages with inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability science, in particular comparative research on real-world laboratories. At Leuphana, these research strands are complemented with research on national sustainability institutions and the sustainability state, participatory sustainability governance, and knowledge cumulation in environmental governance research.
Since 2025: Post-doctoral researcher, coordinator and lecturer with the Key Subject Area “Democratic Resilience: Democracy’s Sustainability in the Global Polycrisis Era” at the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD/ZDEMO) and the Institute of Political Science (IPW), Leuphana University Lüneburg
2024 – 2025: Administrative Professor (Professurverwaltung) for Governance and Sustainability, Leuphana University Lüneburg
2018 – 2025: Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Research Group Governance, Participation and Sustainability, Institute of Sustainability Governance (INSUGO), School of Sustainability, Leuphana University Lüneburg
2015 – 2018: Research Associate, Center for Transformation Research and Sustainability (TransZent), University of Wuppertal
2016 – 2018: Scientific Coordinator, TransZent head office
2015 – 2018: Researcher, BMBF research project “Well-Being Transformation Wuppertal (WTW) – an Urban Transition Laboratory for Sustainable Economics”
2016 – 2017: Adjunct Lecturer, Chair of Political Science II, Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf
2012 – 2015: Doctoral Research Fellow (scholarship), interdisciplinary post graduate programme “Linkage in Democracy” (LinkDe), Institute of Social Sciences, Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, Dr. phil. (equivalent to PhD in political science, 12/2016)
2009: Intern, research area Peace and Sustainable Development, Protestant Institute for Interdisciplinary Research (FEST), Heidelberg
2005 – 2012: Student of Political Science, including Public Administration, International Relations, and Philosophy, Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg, Dipl.-Pol. Univ. (equivalent to master’s degree in political science, 02/2012)
SUSTAINABILITY GOVERNANCE 