Dr. Stephan Liebscher
Since October 2026, I have been a postdoctoral researcher in the collaborative research project “Center for Structural Change and Regional Development” (ZeStuR). As part of this project, I am affiliated with the departments of Macroeconomics and Microeconomics at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. I am also co-spokesperson for the Working Group on AK Labour Geography within the Association of Geography Departments at German-Speaking Universities (VGDH).
Previously, I worked as a research assistant for teaching and research at Freie Universität Berlin. There, I earned my Ph.D. in 2024 at the Institute of Geographical Sciences with a dissertation on the European “Solidarity Cities” movement. My research focused on how urban actors in civil society, politics, and public administration responded to exclusionary and crisis-ridden migration policies after 2015 and how they networked at the national and transnational levels. In 2026, the Förderkreis für Raum- und Umweltforschung e. V. awarded my dissertation the prize in the thematic competition “European Cohesion Policy in the Face of Multiple Upheavals.” During my time at Freie Universität Berlin, I also served as a visiting scholar at Leeds University Business School, Aalborg University, and the University of Westminster.
In addition, I worked as a research assistant at Chemnitz University of Technology and as a municipal consultant on the (digital) participation of young refugees at the German Children and Youth Foundation. During my studies, I focused primarily on human geography, migration studies, and European studies at the University of Passau, the University of Granada, and the University of Osnabrück. During a voluntary social year abroad, I lived and worked in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for one year.
Contact
Teaching Building 2d, Room 121
stephan.liebscher(at)b-tu.de
Link to profile ORCiD
Key research areas
Labor Geography
Critical Geography
Critical Research on Migration and Border Regimes
Social-Ecological Transformation and Organizational Research
Qualitative and Cartographic Methods