Ulrich Teichler

Ulrich Teichler
Professor, International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER-Kassel),
University of Kassel (Germany) from 1978 to 2013

Bio and Research Interest

Ulrich Teichler was for 35 years professor on higher education at the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER Kassel) and at the Department of Social Sciences, University of Kassel (Germany), and he was about half the period Director of the Centre. Already as a student (at the Free University of Berlin), he became member (from 1965 to 1978) member of the Max Planck Institute for Educational Research in Berlin, when he also submitted his doctoral dissertation to the University of Bremen. His research activities and publications focused on higher education and the world of work, systems of higher education in comparative perspective, international mobility and cooperation in higher education, the academic profession as well as the situation of higher education research. He analyzed the search of higher education to strike a balance between accepting societal expectations and playing a proactive, “unexpected” role for society. For example, he emphasized that logics of national higher education systems varied more substantially that widespread assumptions on global trends suggest, he undertook many research projects funded by “political” and governmental agencies. He spent extended periods of research in Japan, the U.S. and the Netherlands, he was guest lecturer or visiting professor in ten countries, and his academic activities brought him to more than 80 countries. More than 500 publications each were written by him in German and in English, and more than 200 articles were published into 20 other languages. He was the founder in 1988 of the internationally most active association of researchers in his area of expertise, i.e. the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER).