Sandra Eckert

Prof. Dr. Sandra Eckert is Professor of Comparative Politics and Chair Holder at the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) since August 2022. Her academic career spans multiple prestigious European institutions including Aarhus University, Goethe University Frankfurt, and the European University Institute in Florence.

Her research interests focus on:

• Governance in the European multi-level system
• European Integration, Europeanization, and the Single Market
• Comparative Political Science and Policy Analysis
• Regulatory Policies, Independent Agencies, and Private Actors
• Banking Regulation and Network Industries
• Environmental Policy and Circular Economy

Prof. Eckert currently leads the EUROPOLVER research project examining European elections as a seismograph of political trust through a German-Austrian comparative lens (2024-2025). Her extensive publication record shows evolving research interests from early work on regulatory governance and experimentalist governance to current focus on the geoeconomic turn of the Single European Market, business power in EU policymaking, and regulatory approaches to plastics across governance levels.

Her scholarly contributions have been published in leading journals including the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of European Integration, and Regulation & Governance. She has authored two monographs: 'Corporate Power and Regulation. Consumers and the Environment in the European Union' (2019) and 'The Social Face of the Regulatory State. Reforming Public Services in Europe' (2015).

Prof. Eckert has established significant international research networks through projects like the Jean Monnet Network VISTA ('Revitalising the Study of EU Single Market Integration in a Turbulent Age') and 'Regulating the Circular Economy and Plastics in the OECD World'. She regularly presents at major political science conferences including ECPR General Conferences and SASE meetings.