Sociologist Jannika Mattes, junior professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, has been awarded the Science Prize of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture.
The award, for which Prof Dr Jannika Mattes was nominated in category II (young scientists), is endowed with prize money of 10,000 euros. It is awarded annually to individuals who have made outstanding scientific achievements and contributions to university development in the post-doctoral phase. The jury honoured Mattes' research on entrepreneurial innovation strategies and social change in the context of the energy transition.
Jannika Mattes studied European Economics at the University of Bamberg and joined the University of Oldenburg as a research assistant in 2007. During her doctorate, which she completed in 2010, she coordinated a Franco-German research project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation on the topic of "Regional learning in multinational corporations". Mattes has been a junior professor for the sociology of European societies since 2011. Research stays have taken her to Utrecht, Uppsala and London. In addition to her work in Oldenburg, she was a visiting professor at the Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE) at Lund University in Sweden for a year. The Institute is one of the leading institutions in the field of European innovation research.
In 2017, Mattes received the "Prize for Excellent Research" from the Oldenburg University Society (UGO). At the beginning of 2018, she was accepted into the prestigious Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Over a period of five years, the DFG is funding her junior research group on the topic of "Regional Energy Transition: Social Negotiation, Standardisation and Learning Processes in the Wind Energy Sector". She and her team are investigating the question of how regions are changing as a result of wind energy.