Prof. Dr. Mike S. Schäfer

About

Mike S. Schäfer is Professor of Science Communication and Director of the Center for Higher Education and Science Studies (CHESS) at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on public communication about science- and technology-related issues—particularly on digital transformation processes, platform dynamics, and societal debates on artificial intelligence and climate change. His extensive body of work integrates social-science theory with interdisciplinary perspectives and empirical methods.

Schäfer studied communication science and sociology in Leipzig, Vienna, and Ireland, and completed his PhD at Freie Universität Berlin. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, the University of Oxford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Monash University. Schäfer is an elected member of acatech—the German National Academy of Science and Engineering. He has served as chair of the expert group “Science in the Swiss Public” of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, as president of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s AGORA commission for the promotion of science communication, and as “Thinker in Residence” of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.

Stay at the Weizenbaum Institute: 19.1.-6.2.2026