Sven Lorenz/RWI
Each year, the KAS Fellowship integrates an important person and their external perspective into our foundation’s work.
Integration into the Foundation’s Work
The Fellowship of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, in short KAS-Fellowship, aims to integrate a person of the public with an external perspective into the work of the foundation. The selection of experts for the Fellowship is based on interdisciplinary motives and the intention to influence the tasks and aims of the foundation’s projects with future-oriented, but also admonishing voices of the society. Self-critical reflection is essential in order to do justice to our core work, the political education. Addressing social change as an element of our own development is both the mission and the challenge of the KAS Fellowship. The sociologist Armin Nassehi (KAS Fellow 2021), the diplomat and security expert Christoph Heusgen (KAS Fellow 2022), the marine researcher Antje Boetius (KAS Fellow 2023) and the digital and technology expert Lars Zimmermann (KAS Fellow 2024) are followed from January 2025 by the economist Christoph M. Schmidt.
KAS Fellow 2025: Christoph M. Schmidt
Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Christoph M. Schmidt is President of the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen and holds the Chair of Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics at the Faculty of Management and Economics at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. He was and is a member of various boards and councils, including the German Council of Economic Experts from 2009 to 2020, where he served as chairman from 2013 to 2020. He has also been a member of the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (EFI) since 2024. In his award-winning work, he focuses on issues of energy, health and labour market economics and is involved at the interface between research and science-based policy advice. For Christoph M. Schmidt, the foundation's diverse work opens up the opportunity to emphasise the contribution of economics to key social issues in various fields of activity and to embed it in an interdisciplinary discourse. In particular, the foundation's international network on the one hand and its work on fundamental political and economic questions on the other make it an ideal partner for discussing the organisation of the social market economy in the 21st century in various contexts. Together with the foundation, Christoph M. Schmidt wants to formulate science-based answers to pressing social and economic questions, for example in the areas of labour market, health and energy policy.
Interview with our new KAS Fellow Christoph M. Schmidt
(only in German)
YouTube, onlinekas
Former KAS Fellows
The following overview will provide information about and video interviews on our former KAS Fellows.
2024: Lars Zimmermann
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2024, Lars Zimmermann
(only in German)
YouTube, onlinekas
Lars Zimmermann is co-founder and was board member of GovTech Campus Deutschland e.V. during his fellowship – the world's first innovation, development and learning space for the modernisation of government and administration.
2023: Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2023, Professor Antje Boetius
(only in German)
YouTube, onlinekas
Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius was Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, and Professor of Geomicrobiology at the University of Bremen during her fellowship.
2022: Prof. Dr. Christoph Heusgen
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2022, Professor Christoph Heusgen
(only in German)
YouTube, onlinekas
As a renowned expert on German foreign and security policy, he held the position of Chairman of the Munich Security Conference during his fellowship.
2021: Prof. Dr. Armin Nassehi
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2020/2021 Professor Armin Nassehi
(only in German)
YouTube, onlinekas
Professor Armin Nassehi holds the chair at the Institute for Sociology at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. He was born in Tübingen and grow up in Gelsenkirchen and Teheran. In Munich, he teaches and researches in the area of General Sociology and Social Theory, with a special focus on culture, politics and knowledge production. Professor Armin Nassehi is one of the leading academic voices in social discourse. He has received multiple awards for his achievements and efforts in making sociological analyses on current social problems understandable for the wider public. With this role and function, he supported the foundation for one year as the first KAS Fellow.
