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PD Dr. Jens Jetzkowitz

Short vita

Study of sociology and Protestant theology; Master of Arts (7/1995); Topic of the master's thesis: The problem of social change in functionalist action theories.

09/1999 Promotion to Dr. phil in sociology at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the Philipps University of Marburg; Title of the dissertation: Law and religion in modern society. Sociological theory and analysis using the example of the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court in matters of “religion” between 1983 and 1997.

06/2015 Habilitation from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg; Title of the habilitation thesis: Sociological knowledge for the sustainability discourse. Towards co-evolutionary science.

As an employee in or (co-)leader of research teams at the universities in Marburg (1996-2005), Lüneburg (2006-2008), at ZALF (2008-2012), at the Disaster Research Center of the Free University of Berlin (2012), at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (2019-2021) and at the Thünen Institute in Braunschweig (2022-2025).

Teaching positions at the universities of Marburg (Prof. Dr. Udo Kelle) and Frankfurt/Main (Prof. Dr. Ulrich Oevermann) in 2005/06 as well as at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Prof. Dr. Klaus Eder) in 2009 and 2010 and at the Helmut Schmidt University of Hamburg (Prof. Dr. Udo Kelle) from 2013 to 2016.

Substitute professorships for economic and environmental sociology in Halle (10/2012 - 9/2015) as well as for methods of empirical social research and statistics in Marburg (10/2015 - 9/2016), Chemnitz (10/2016 - 3/2017), Stuttgart (4/2020 - 3/2021) and at the HSU Hamburg (10/2025-2026)

Research priorities

Environmental sociology and sustainability research

• Interactions between social and ecological systems (especially in the problem areas of biological diversity and climate change)
• Land use conflicts and land use governance
• Social inequality and sustainable development
• Meaning-making in business and society

Methods and methodology

• Mixed methods
• Pragmatism, functionalism and semiotics

Academic and professional functions (selection)

• Professional Association of Sociology in Germany e.V. (Professional Association of German Sociologists) – Member of the Senate 2023-2024; since 10/2024 First Chairman of the Federal Executive Board.
• Lead of Work Package 4 (“Governance and Societal Transformation”) in the “Paludi4All” project funded by the EU Commission; Cooperation with colleagues from Finland, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Poland • Spokesperson for the “Environmental and Sustainability Sociology” section in the German Society (10/2018 to 1/2023). •
• Member of the research advisory board of the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park (since 2021). •
• Lead author of the IPBES Global Assessment (2016 – 2019). •
• Representative of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin at the “SDG Workshop on Citizen Science” of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) Policy Working Group at UNEP, Geneva, June 1, 2018. •
• German Committee for Sustainability Research in Future Earth, associated member (5/2015 – 4/2017)
• Expert reviewer for Environmental Sociology, Environmental Policy and Governance, Histoire des Alpes, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, International Review of Social Research, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Urban Ecology, Landscape Ecology, Nature + Culture, Progress in Human Geography, Reviews in Ecological Economics, Sociological Review, Environmental Psychology, Journal of Sociology.
• Expert reviewer for the German Research Foundation, BiodivERsA, national ad hoc expert committee for Nomination for the IPBES expert groups
  

The five most recent publications in specialist journals

• The different ways to operationalize the social in applied models and simulations of sustainability science: A contribution for the enhancement of good modeling practices. In: Ecological Modeling 500, 2025, 110952 (with Ronald B. Bialozyt, Martina Roß-Nickoll and Richard Ottermanns); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2024.110952   
• Nature as the ultimate source of meaning. Preliminary considerations for researching connections to holiness in nature-related knowledge and practice contexts. In: N. Ecke, et al. (ed.), The Sacred (in) Culture. Unavailability – Latency – Dedication. Paderborn: Brill, Fink, 87-103 (with Oliver Schmidtke).
• Socially desirable awareness of biological diversity? A new approach to a well-known problem with normatively charged survey topics. In: Social World 74(2), 2023, pp. 245-272 (with Thomas Krause); DOI:10.5771/0038-6073-2023-2-245   
• Ecosystem services as a governance tool. In: Marco Sonnberger, Alena Bleicher and Matthias Groß (eds.), 2024: Handbook of Environmental Sociology. 2nd edition, Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-37218-7_23   
• Biological diversity from a sociological perspective. In: Marco Sonnberger, Alena Bleicher and Matthias Groß (eds.), 2023: Handbook of Environmental Sociology. 2nd edition, Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37222-4_22-1   

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