Always on the Move: Jutta Allmendinger Turns 70

Until two years ago, she was the President of our institute, and she had a significant influence on it: the sociologist and education researcher Jutta Allmendinger. Yet her voice was, and still is, heard far beyond the WZB. Our thanks and congratulations on her milestone birthday are written by Heike Solga, Director of the WZB’s Department of Skill Formation and Labor Markets.

“What is Jutta Allmendinger actually up to these days?” I’m asked this question time and again when I meet colleagues at conferences or events. For anyone who knows her, the answer is simple: standing still is not an option. My answer is therefore brief: “Oh, all sorts of things!”

Looking at the WZB today, many things seem to go without saying. Yet a large part of these structures were only established during Jutta Allmendinger’s presidency between 2007 and 2024: from the early-career research groups, to consistently bilingual communication to promote internationalisation, to the introduction of an ethics committee. She founded the ‘Friends of the WZB’ association, brought the A.SK Social Science Award to the WZB and forged links between cutting-edge research and the cultural world (including the Visual Society Programme with the UdK). With initiatives such as ‘WZB wirkt’ and ‘Young Scholars Meet Politics’, she has played a key role in raising the profile of academia and establishing more concrete links to the realities of everyday life.

The expectation that she might take things a bit easier at 70 – having achieved so much – certainly does not apply to Jutta Allmendinger. Her current commitments and workload are, and remain, impressive: she chairs the Lower Saxony Science Commission, is a member of the German Ethics Council, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the editorial board of ZEIT. She was the first person to be appointed twice to the Science Council – a scientific policy advisory body for the federal and state governments – once as a scientist (2006 to 2012) and, since 2025, as a ‘public figure’ (informally referred to in the Council as a ‘Lebefrau’). From the Berlin City Cleaning Authority to the German Children and Youth Foundation, the University Council of the University of Vienna and the International Advisory Council of Bocconi University in Milan, right through to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, where she is responsible for the annual theme ‘Family’ for 2027/28, she remains a key driving force. In her podcast ‘Der Sprung ins kalte Wasser’ (Taking the Plunge), which she runs together with Katja Kipping, she experiments with new formats of communication. And despite this heavy workload, she makes time to advise young researchers, write expert reports and share her expertise with the wider public through numerous lectures.

To round off, it’s worth mentioning a challenge she set herself for her birthday and successfully completed: swimming across Lago Maggiore – around four kilometres in under two hours, using the breaststroke and without any neoprene buoyancy. And anyone who thinks that’s it is mistaken once again: the goal for next year has already been set – she plans to complete the distance using the front crawl and even faster.

Dear Jutta, for all these projects, the challenges ahead and your boundless curiosity, we wish you continued strength, energy and joy. Happy birthday!

Heike Solga

24.09.26, PW