Nina Baur

Professor Nina Baur holds the Chair for Methods of Empirical Social Research at the Technical University of Berlin's Faculty VI (Planning, Building, Environment), Institute of Sociology. She also serves as Director of the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (GCSMUS), which connects 48 institutional partners across 48 countries and 8 world regions.

Baur earned her doctorate in Sociology summa cum laude from Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg in 2005 and completed her sociology studies at Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg, University of Hamburg, and Lancaster University (UK), where she received a Diploma in Sociology with distinction. Prior to her professorship at TU Berlin, she worked as a research associate and lecturer at Otto-Friedrich University Bamberg and the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Her research focuses on methods of social research, particularly process-oriented methodology, spatial methods, and mixed methods research. She also specializes in market sociology (with emphasis on consumer goods and labor markets), historical and cross-cultural sociology, sociology of processes, innovations and risks, and spatial sociology. Her methodological approach emphasizes understanding long-term social processes and the micro-macro connection in sociological analysis.

Her recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward spatial analysis and the "refiguration of spaces," examining how spatial arrangements influence social processes in commodity chains, urban sustainability, and cross-cultural contexts. She has made significant contributions to decolonizing social science methodology and addressing positionality in research.

• DGS Dissertation Prize (2006)
• E.ON Kulturpreis Bayern (2005)
• Lehrpreis der Fakultät VI (2015)

Professor Baur has led numerous major research projects, including the Collaborative Research Center "Re-Figuration of Spaces" (CRC 1265), the "Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability" (GCSMUS), and studies on pandemic impacts on supply chains and urban agriculture in Nairobi. She serves as Managing Editor of the Journal "Historical Social Research" (HSR) and is a former President of the Research Committee on Logic & Methodology in Sociology (RC33) of the International Sociology Association.

She actively participates in international academic networks and has hosted over 35 international guests from countries worldwide, reflecting her commitment to global scholarly exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration.