Volker Ronge

Volker Ronge, whose family fled from Gurau in 1945 , spent his childhood in Oldenburg . After leaving school in 1962 , Folke Rong served 3 years in the army. After the service, in 1965 , he entered the Free University of Berlin , where he studied political science and jurisprudence and defended a diploma in political science . Since 1969, he worked for 3 years in the research project “Political Planning in Germany”, funded by a German research society.

In 1972, Volker Ronghe defended his dissertation at the University of Bremen and moved to Starnberg , where he worked as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Living Conditions of the Scientific and Technical World under the leadership of Karl Friedrich von Weizsacker and Jürgen Habermas . In 1976, Volker Ronge defended his doctoral dissertation in political science at the Free University of Berlin . In 1979, he became director of the Infratest Public Opinion Research Institute in Munich .

In 1982, Berg University of Wuppertal invited Volker Ronge to the position of professor of general sociology with a specialization in Macrostructural Analysis of Society. For several years, Volker Ronge was the dean of the department of social sciences. In 1991, he became vice-rector for planning and finance. From 1999 to 2008, Volker Ronge was (fifth in a row) the rector of the University of Berg Wuppertal , which was founded in 1972 .

As a guest professor, Volker Ronge was invited to teach in Roskilde ( Denmark ), Innsbruck ( Austria ), Leiden ( Netherlands ), Kosice ( Slovakia ), Kaliningrad ( Russia ), as well as in Berlin and Munich .

• 1993 : Consultation of the Russian government on migration policy (as an expert at IOM - International Organization for Migration )
• 1996 - 1998 : Consultation of the Russian government on social policy (as an expert in the EU TACIS program - Technical Assistence to the Commonwealth of Independent States )
• Since 2006 : German-Russian summer and winter schools in sociology in Sushnevo / Moscow , Stayki and Raubichi / Minsk , in Ufa and Kiev
• Together with the local Vperyod newspaper of the Petushinsky district, Volker Ronge published a series of articles about life in the city in which he was living at that moment - Traunstein - in order to acquaint readers with the life of a German town similar in structure to Petushki .
• Project "Management in the field of culture": Together with the Bashkir Academy of Public Administration and Management under the President of the Republic of Bashkortostan in Ufa, Volker Rong conducted a study examining several specific cases on the issue of management in the field of culture. Anna Travkina from Moscow , Galia Khismatullina, a German language teacher from Bashkir State University and Helmut Hopp, a professor from the Ludwigsburg Graduate School of Management, also participated in the project.
• In collaboration with a literary magazine in Ufa, “ Bel'skie Vastra ”, Volker Ronge initiated the publication of reviews of books by contemporary German authors translated into Russian.
• Volker Ronge prepared and published a series of marketing articles in collaboration with the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radio Electronics . Their distinctive feature was the socio-scientific presentation, unlike most publications on marketing, which are of an applied nature ^[1] .

Behind all the projects (except for the consultation of the Russian government) there was Volker Ronge's desire to bring something new to Russian , Belarusian and Ukrainian science / journalism. In Russia, Volker Ronge very often chose non-Moscow organizations as his partners.

His projects almost never had sponsors, while Volker Ronge himself almost never received royalties. Volker Ronge realized all his projects at the expense of his scientific idealism and involvement in his work.

Volker Ronge developed a pedagogical concept for his winter and summer schools, which formed the basis of every summer or winter school. Volker Ronge chose a pleasant place outside the university, where students spent the night, breakfast, lunch and dinner, gathered a group of 12-20 students from different countries, cities and from different universities. For one week, 24 hours a day, students were together - with each other and the professor. The main program of summer and winter schools was lectures in German on topics at the intersection of sociology , economics , the media and journalism , which Volker Ronge read independently. Lectures were replaced by practical tasks in small groups. In addition to lectures, excursions were organized for students: both cultural (to museums and nearby cities), and production (to publishers, travel companies, to factories).

Volker Ronge found sources of financing in Germany independently. Most often, summer and winter schools were financed by the professor himself. But there were also cases when Volker Ronge found sponsors in his circle. For students, participation in summer and winter schools was completely free.

A lot of students from Russia , Belarus and Ukraine took the opportunity to participate in summer and winter schools, and all noted that participation in them was incredibly useful. Winter and summer schools had their fans: many participants participated in the professors' schools for several years in a row.

Volker Ronge is:

• Honorary Doctor of the Technical University in Kosice in Slovakia (received his degree in 2004 );
• Honorary Doctor of the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radio Electronics in Minsk (received a degree in 2009 );
• Honorary Doctor of Bashkir State University in Ufa (received a degree in 2014 );
• Honorary Professor of the Bashkir Academy of Public Administration and Management under the President of the Republic of Bashkortostan in Ufa (received a degree in 2012 );
• Honorary Professor at the Academy of Media Industry in Moscow (received a degree in 2013 ).