Dagmar Schäfer

Dagmar Schäfer is a leading historian of science and technology, serving as Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) and holding the Chair of China Studies and History of Technology at the University of Manchester (2011). She directs Department III: Artifacts, Action, Knowledge at MPIWG since 2013 and holds Honorary Professorships at Technische Universität Berlin (History of Science and Technology) and Freie Universität Berlin (China Studies). Her research spans the history of Chinese technology (Song-Ming dynasties), material culture, and knowledge systems, emphasizing artifacts' role in scientific diffusion.

• Doctorate (1996) and Habilitation (2005) in Sinology and History of Science
• Guest Professorships: Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2017), IAS Princeton (2019), European University Institute (2022)

Her seminal work, The Crafting of the 10,000 Things (2011), explores 17th-century Chinese knowledge systems, earning the Pfizer and Levenson Prizes. Recent contributions focus on knowledge ownership (co-edited Ownership of Knowledge, MIT Press 2023) and plurilingual scholarship in Eurasia (co-edited Brill 2023). Her 2020 Leibniz Prize recognized her innovative approaches to global cultural studies.

Publications analyze comparative technological paradigms, local knowledge in historical contexts, and transcultural artifact analysis. She is central to the Kn/Own/Able project challenging intellectual property norms in knowledge dissemination.