Lecture

Prof. Dr Ursula Münch has been Director of the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing, an academic institution funded by the Free State of Bavaria, which promotes political education independently and non-partisanly as an institution under public law, since November 2011. She has since been on leave from her professorship in political science (with a special focus on domestic politics and comparative government) at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, which she has held since 1999.

Her research interests include federalism and party research, policy analyses (asylum and immigration policy, education policy, family policy, domestic security) and the effects of the digital transformation on politics and society.

Ursula Münch completed her academic training as a political scientist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. There she also completed her doctorate (on family policy in Germany) and habilitation (on social policy and federalism), following the publication of her master’s thesis on German asylum policy. In 1990, she took part in the Fulbright Programme ‘American Studies’ at New York University, and in 1993 she taught for a semester as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota.

She has been a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Federal Agency for Civic Education since August 2021. She is a member of the Ethics Commission of the German Political Science Association (DVPW). Among other things, she is a member of the Bavarian State Parliament’s Commission on the Rights of Members of Parliament and the Advisory Board of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Health Research (ZIG) at the University of Augsburg. She was also a member of the Science Council (2015-2021), the University Council of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2014-2022) and the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt) (2018-2020).

Photo © Akademie für Politische Bildung

Lecture in German

The Academy for Political Education was founded in 1957 by the so-called four-party coalition in the Bavarian state parliament consisting of the SPD, FDP, Bavarian Party and the All-German Block/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten (Association of Expellees and Disenfranchised Persons) through an academy law.

As an institution under public law, it promotes political education, consolidates the principles of the free democratic basic order and strengthens the democratic awareness of citizens. Its legally guaranteed independence makes it unique throughout Germany and beyond. The Academy is mainly financed by funds from the state budget of the Free State of Bavaria and has the right of self-administration within the framework of the law.

Conferences, panel discussions and seminars on current and historical topics from politics, business and society are regularly held at its conference centre in Tutzing on Lake Starnberg and at other locations in Bavaria – on a non-partisan and non-denominational basis. The online event programme provides an overview.