Dr Judith Vey heads Cluster 5 – ‘Conflicts over Democracy and Migration’ – at the Centre for Structural Change and Regional Development (ZeStuR) at the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. There, she investigates the relationship between liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalism in post-migrant societies, with a particular focus on Lusatia.

Dr Vey conducts research into social movements, civil society participation and (refugee) migration from a critical, poststructuralist and intersectional perspective. Her research is characterised by a transdisciplinary, participatory, application-oriented and theory-building approach. 
From 2002 to 2007, she studied sociology (Diplom) with minors in political science and Psychology at the Free University of Berlin and Lund University, Sweden. In 2013, she was awarded a PhD from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main for a hegemony-theoretical analysis of left-wing crisis protests in Germany. From 2013 to 2022, she secured funding for and carried out several projects at the Centre for Technology and Society at the Technical University of Berlin on (refugee) migration, processes of social inclusion and exclusion, as well as civil society participation, self-organisation and protest. From 2020 to 2022, she headed the Social Movements, Technology and Conflicts section. She subsequently moved to the University of Bremen, joining the Socium – Research Centre for Social Policy and Inequality and the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), where her roles included that of academic coordinator. Following a visiting position at the Chair of Political Theory at the University of Potsdam, she has been working at the BTU since August. She is also a lecturer at various colleges and universities and, from 2009 to 2025, served as a trainer for the GEW’s workshop series ‘Promovieren leicht(er) gemacht’ (‘Making a PhD (a little) easier’) for GEW regional branches, foundations and universities.
From 2025 to 2028, she will lead the DFG research network ‘Poststructuralist Protest and Movement Research: A Multi-perspective Analytical Approach’ (POPMAP) together with Prof. Dr Mareike Gebhardt and Dr Helge Schwiertz. Owing to her expertise in the field of (refugee and migration) issues and her civic engagement, she also works as a consultant to politicians, public authorities and civil society organisations.

Her research focuses on:

• (Refugee) migration  
• Social movements, civil society and self-organisation
• Right-wing extremism (and its prevention)
• Political and sociological theories, in particular poststructuralist approaches