After his PhD at the University of Graz in 1999 (with a dissertation on the social and environmental history of the Rhodopi Mountains), Ulf Brunnbauer received a habilitation in East and Southeast as well as Modern History from the Free University of Berlin in 2006 (with a book on ideology and social life in communist Bulgaria). In 2008 he was appointed Chair of History of Southeastern and Eastern Europe at the University of Regensburg. Also in 2008, he became director of the then Südost-Institut, which was one of the predecessors of today’s Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies. From 2012 to 2017 Ulf Brunnbauer was managing director of IOS and as of July 2017, he is its first full-time academic director.

Brunnbauer’s research is mainly devoted to the social history of Southeastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, with collateral interest in the history of nationalism, Muslim minorities and the history of history writing in the region. Most prominent in his research are the themes migration, family, and labor. Ulf Brunnbauer is committed to the approaches of modern social history, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, with a clear interest in both, structures and social practices. A decisive influence on his work was played by his training in historical anthropology.

Current services to academia

• Co-Coordinator of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies (LMU Munich/University of Regensburg)
• Member of the Executive Board of the Center for International and Transnational Studies (CITAS) at the University of Regensburg
• Member of the advisory boards of Center for Advanced Studies (Sofia), Bayerischen Hochschulzentrums für Mittel-, Ost- und Südosteuropa (BAYHOST), des Center for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz, Croatian Institute of History (Zagreb), Institut für donauschwäbische Landeskunde und Geschichte (Tübingen)

Reviewer for (selection):

• Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung
• Bundesbeauftragter für Kultur und Medien (BKM)
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• Deutscher Akademischen Austausch Dienst (DAAD)
• European Research Council
• Gerda von Henkel Stiftung
• Grantova Agentura (Tschechische Republik)
• Jubiläumsfonds der Österreichischen Nationalbank
• Österreichischer Forschungsförderungsfonds (FWF)
• Schweizer Nationalfonds

Member of:

• Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde (DGO)
• Deutscher Hochschulverband
• International Association for Southeast European Anthropology (InASEA)
• Johann Gottfried Herder-Forschungsrat
• Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft (SOG)
• Verband der Osteuropahistoriker/innen (VOH e.V.) 

Editorial services

Co-Editor of

• Südosteuropäische Arbeiten
• Südost-Forschungen
• Handbuch zur Geschichte Südosteuropas
• DigiOst
• Schnittstellen. Studien zum östlichen und südöstlichen Europa
• Studien zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Ostmitteleuropas

Editorial Board Memberships

• Bulgarian Ethnology
• Central Europe
• Debatte: review of contemporary German affairs
• Dve domovini/Two homelands
• Ethnologia Balkanica
• Etnološka tribina / Ethnological Forum
• Études Balkanique
• Südosteuropa. Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsforschung
• Tabula. Journal of the Department of Humanities