Prof Dr Norbert Kersting is a university professor at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. He has held the Chair of Political Science there since April 2011, specialising in comparative local and regional politics.
After studying sociology, politics, economics and education at the Universities of Marburg and Madrid, Professor Kersting completed his doctorate and habilitation at the Philipps University of Marburg on the subject of ‘The Future of Local Politics’. This was followed by international local politics research projects and chair positions, particularly in the field of political science methods at the University of Marburg. After his habilitation, he held the professorships of Political System of the Federal Republic of Germany and Comparative Politics at the Universities of Koblenz-Landau and Kassel. From 2006 to 2011, he held the DAAD Chair for Democratisation and Regional Cooperation at the University of Stellenbosch. In 2011 he moved to the University of Münster. Since 2000, Prof Kersting has been on the board of the Research Committee 05: ‘Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics’ of the International Political Science Association (IPSA). Since 2011, Prof. Kersting has headed the Competence Centre for Sustainable Municipal Finance Policy.

Prof Dr Dörte Diemert is City Treasurer and Head of Finance and Investments for the City of Cologne. Prof Diemert was born in Düsseldorf in 1974. She studied law at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf from 1993 to 1998. She also studied abroad at the Université d'Aix-Marseille in France in 1995/96. Dörte Diemert passed her first state examination in law in 1998, followed by a doctorate in law in 2002, a legal clerkship at the Higher Regional Court of Hamm (2001 - 2004) and her second state examination in law in 2004. Dörte Diemert began her professional career in 1998 as a research assistant at the Institute of Municipal Studies at the University of Münster. In 2003, she took over the management of the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Institute at the University of Münster before working as a consultant for environmental, building and planning law, surveying and cadastre, rescue services, fire brigades and disaster control at the Landkreistag Nordrhein-Westfalen for one year in 2007. Subsequently, from 2008 to 2016, she took on the role of consultant and later chief advisor for municipal finances at the German Association of Cities in Berlin/Cologne. From 2016 to 2019, she was City Treasurer for Finance, Investments and European Affairs and has also been City Director of the City of Duisburg since 2017. In November 2018, Prof Diemert was elected City Treasurer of the City of Cologne. She has held this office since 24 January 2019. She has also been a lecturer at the Universität Münster since 2005 and was appointed honorary professor in 2016.
 

Prof Dr Thomas Döring has held the Chair of Politics and Institutions with a focus on institutional economics at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences since 2011. He also heads the university's own Centre for Research and Development (ZFE) as well as the Service Centre for Research and Transfer (SFT). After studying sociology (diploma) and economics (diploma) at the Philipps University of Marburg, Prof. Döring initially worked at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin in 1994, before completing his doctorate in 1997 on the subject of ‘Subsidiarity and environmental policy in the European Union’ and his habilitation in 2001 on the subject of ‘Institutional economic foundations of financial policy advice’ - both at the Department of Economics at the University of Marburg. From 2003 to 2006, he worked as a consultant for the development of teaching and research (in the fields of economics, social and environmental sciences) in the planning staff of the Presidential Board of the University of Kassel. This was followed by a professorship in economics with a focus on public finance at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (Austria) from 2006 to 2011, where he also headed the university's own Research Centre for Interregional Studies and International Management (ISMA) from 2008. Prof Döring is also a member of the Committee for Economic Systems and Institutional Economics of the Verein für Socialpolitik, the Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (ARL) and the Board of Trustees of the Centre for Public Administration Research (KDZ - Vienna). His research and publications focus on the fields of fiscal federalism and municipal finance policy, urban and regional economics as well as environmental and consumer policy.

Dr Kirsten Witte studied economics at Saarland University and the University of Münster.
University of Münster. After completing her
studies, she worked as a research assistant at the Chair of
economic theory, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the regulatory
perspectives of the European Union.

She then moved to the city administration of Münster, initially as a
first as an advisor to the City Director, later as Head of Economic Development.

Kirsten Witte has been working for the Bertelsmann Stiftung since the end of 2001. There
researched the future of the social market economy before becoming
before becoming a consultant to the Executive Board and then Head of the Centre for
Centre for Sustainable Development.

Dorothee Feller is Vice-President of the Münster District Government and permanent deputy to the District President. She has also been Head of Department 1 since 2008 and is responsible for organisation, information technology, facility management, budget, personnel management, training and further education, controlling and internal auditing at Münster District Government. The lawyer has been working for the Münster district government since February 1996. During her professional career, she has worked in various departments of the authority as well as in the Ministry of the Interior of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and was also significantly involved in the implementation of administrative modernisation.
Dorothee Feller is strongly committed to improving the financial situation in local authorities and managing structural change in the Emscher-Lippe region as well as promoting culture and regional development. It has intensified its advisory services for local authorities and worked with municipalities, cities and districts to develop prospects for emerging from the crisis. This also includes supporting the participating municipalities in the implementation of budget restructuring plans as part of the Economic Stability Pact Act, as well as close cooperation with the municipalities with regard to the challenges associated with the high number of refugees and integration. Feller is also active in various associations and as a member of various supervisory bodies, including the Supervisory Board of WIN-Emscher-Lippe GmbH, the Coal Conversion Coal Region Ibbenbüren Steering Committee, the INTERREG/Euregio Steering Committee and the Supervisory Board and Steering Committee of Regionale 2016 (in an advisory capacity).

Dr. Henrik Scheller is a German political scientist, university lecturer and team leader at the German Institute of Urban Affairs.
There he is responsible for the fields of financial and budgetary policy of the municipalities, investment policy and infrastructure financing of the municipalities, mixed financing, federal financial relations and municipal financial equalization systems.

Désirée I. Christofzik has held the chair of Public Economics at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer since 2021. She is research associate at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim.
From 2019 to 2021 she was a Professor at the Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences in Brühl (Germany). Prior to this appointment, she served as Deputy Secretary General and Economist in the scientific staff of the German Council of Economic Experts.
Her research focuses on (local) public finance as well as tax and fiscal policy.

Dr Michael Thöne (born 1967) is Managing Director of the Institute of Public Finance at the University of Cologne (FiFo Köln). He studied economics and political science at the University of Cologne and at Trinity College, University of Dublin. He completed his doctorate in Cologne on the compatibility of sustainable fiscal policy with sustainability-orientated taxation.

Michael Thöne has worked for twenty-five years as a scientific policy advisor for the majority of federal ministries and state governments, for the Bundestag and various state parliaments, local authorities, associations/NGOs and for European and international governments and institutions.

From 1982 to 1988 studied economics at the University of Mainz (Dipl.- Volkswirt), 1994 doctorate (Dr. rer.pol.); 1993-2003 various positions in the Ministry of Science of the Rhineland-Palatinate state government, including as Parliamentary and Cabinet Secretary, Head of the Minister's Office and Head of the Central Department; 2003-2006 Permanent Representative of the Plenipotentiary of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate to the Federal Government and for Europe and Head of Office (based in Berlin and Brussels); 2006-2009 State Secretary and Head of Office in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture.
2009-2014 Minister of Finance (in this office also Minister of Construction of the state), since 2015 Lecturer in Finance at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer and since 2016 Honorary Professor at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer.
Since 2018, Carsten Kühl has been Managing Director and Scientific Director of the German Institute of Urban Affairs in Berlin.

Christine Zeller has been Treasurer of the City of Münster since 2020. In addition to a 1.7 billion euro budget, the business and administrative economist is also responsible for municipal investments and foundations, central legal services and the topics of migration and integration. She is also a member of the Finance Committee of the German Association of Cities and Towns and the NRW Association of Cities and Towns.
 

Michael Esken was born in Gütersloh on July 23, 1966. He grew up in the Westphalian town of Kaunitz in the district of Gütersloh, where he still lives. After graduating from Verl grammar school, where he was part of the first intake in 1977, he did his military service and trained as a reserve officer. He studied law at the University of Bielefeld and worked as a lawyer in a law firm in Verl immediately after his second state examination in 1997. In 1989, he became a member of the council of the then municipality of Verl for the first time (for the CDU). His time as a lawyer was followed by his appointment as a civil servant in the city of Paderborn. When he became first alderman in Gronau (Münsterland) in 2002, he resigned from his honorary political office in Verl. From 1994 to 2003, Michael Esken also represented Verl as a directly elected representative in the Gütersloh district council.
In 2003, Michael Esken was elected mayor of Hemer (Sauerland). This was followed by two re-elections. The opportunity to hold office in his home town of Verl prompted him to run for mayor here. He was re-elected in 2020. In September 2023, during his second term of office, he stepped down as mayor of Verl and moved to the Municipal Audit Office of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in Herne, where he is currently President.

Prof Dr Dennis Hilgers has been a university professor and head of the Institute for Public and Nonprofit Management at the Johannes Kepler University Linz since 2012. After studying business administration at RWTH Aachen University and conducting research in the Public Management department at the University of Hamburg, he completed his doctorate in 2008 on the subject of ‘Performance Management in Companies and Public Administrations’. From 2008-2009 he was a senior researcher at the Chair of Technology and Innovation Management at RWTH Aachen University. From 2008-2012, he worked as a junior professor for public management at the University of Hamburg. His research interests include the reform of public budgeting and accounting, public accounting standards (HGB/IPSAS/EPSAS) and innovation management in public organisations.

Member of the Board of Trustees | Head of Development Consultancy & Customer Support at NRW.BANK

Head of Public Sector Clients bei NRW.BANK

After completing vocational training in financial administration and studying economics, Dr Jörg Hopfe worked for a major German
bank, a consulting firm and a ministry in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He gained his doctorate in economics and has held various part-time teaching positions at universities - since 2010 at TU Dortmund University. Dr Jörg Hopfe is a founding member of the German PPP Association and has been a member of its board since 2005. He has been in charge of the municipal sector in North Rhine-Westphalia for almost 20 years. In November 2004, Dr Jörg Hopfe moved to NRW.BANK, where he is currently Head of the Promotion Consulting & Customer Support division.

Prof Dr Janbernd Oebbecke is Professor Emeritus of Public Law and Administration at the University of Münster. Until March 2018, he was Managing Director of the University's Institute of Municipal Studies and the Freiherr-vom-Stein Institute, the scientific research centre of the North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Districts at the University of Münster. After working as an administrative officer at the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe, he was director of the Freiherr-vom-Stein Institute and qualified as a professor in 1986. Until 1993, Prof. Oebbecke was initially an alderman, then from 1992 first alderman of the NRW County Council in Düsseldorf. From 1994 to 1997, he was a university professor for public law and administration at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. In 1997, he accepted an appointment at the University of Münster. His work focusses on the legal and administrative aspects of municipal finances.

Prof Dr Ludger Sander was appointed Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Münster in 2003. After studying economics in Münster, he completed his doctorate at the University of Münster with a dissertation on the subject of "Tasks and revenues of local authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany. An economic analysis in the light of collective goods theory". Prof Dr Ludger Sander then worked in Münster from 1987 to 1992, initially as personal assistant to the city treasurer and subsequently as head of the city treasury. From 1992 until his retirement in October 2016, he took on the role of City Treasurer in the Federal City of Bonn. For many years, he was Chairman of the Finance Committee of the German Association of Cities and the North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Cities.

Heinrich Böckelühr was President of the North Rhine-Westphalia Municipal Audit Office (gpaNRW) based in Herne from October 2017 until 2022.
He completed his law studies at Ruhr University Bochum in 1998 with the second state examination in law and subsequently worked as an independent lawyer in Iserlohn. Heinrich Böckelühr has been politically active since his youth. From 1988 to 1999, he was a member of the Schwerte City Council. Since October 1, 1999, Heinrich Böckelühr has been the directly elected full-time mayor of the city of Schwerte and was confirmed in the first ballot in the subsequent elections in 2004, 2009 and 2014. As the former mayor of a level 1 consolidation pact municipality, Heinrich Böckelühr knows the processes of municipal budget consolidation from his own experience. As President of gpaNRW, he was responsible for supporting municipalities throughout NRW in their budgetary policy by creating room for maneuver and strengthening municipal self-government.

Prof Dr Ingolf Deubel is Managing Director of Deubel Government Consulting GmbH in Bad Kreuznach and advises state governments and local authorities on fiscal policy issues. He specialises in the strategic orientation of public budgets with a view to implementing the debt brake, municipal and federal financial equalisation and issues of budget consolidation.
Prof Deubel studied economics and completed his doctorate at the Institute of Public Finance at the University of Münster. There he lectures in the fields of finance, economic and administrative policy. In 2004, he was appointed honorary professor by the Faculty of Economics.
He has practical experience in many areas of financial policy and administrative modernisation from his positions as City Treasurer and Chief City Director of Solingen (1985 - 1997) and State Secretary and Minister in the Ministry of Finance of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate (1997 - 2009).
As a member of the Federalism Reform Commission II (2007 - 2009), he played a key role in the design and introduction of the debt brake for the federal and state governments.

Prof Dr Georg Milbradt has been the German Special Envoy for the Ukrainian Reform Agenda since 2017. He obtained his doctorate in 1973 and his habilitation at the University of Münster in 1980. From 1985 to 2009, he was an associate professor of economics at the University of Münster, and from 1982 to 1990 he was head of the Department of Finance, Real Estate and Economic Development at the City of Münster. At the political level, Milbradt was Minister of Finance in Saxony from 1992 to 2001; in 2002, he was elected Minister President of Saxony until 2008. Since 2010, Georg Milbradt has been Associate Professor of Economics, in particular Financial Policy, at TU Dresden, and from 2013 Chairman of the Board of the Forum of Federations in Ottawa. In 2014, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Independent Advisory Board of the Stability Council.

Prof Dr Gunnar Schwarting has been an honorary professor at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer since 2001. After studying economics and history, he completed his doctorate under Prof Dr Konrad Littmann in Speyer. After working in the treasury department of the city of Düsseldorf, he was elected city treasurer in Frechen (NW) in 1982. Ten years later, the board of the Rhineland-Palatinate Association of Cities and Towns elected him Managing Director. Prof Schwarting held this position until 2014.
Prof Schwarting is a member of the Finance Committee of the Verein für Socialpolitik and the KGSt's ‘Financial Management’ expert committee. He heads the working group ‘Digitalisation and Bureaucracy Reduction in Public Administration’ of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Wirtschaftliche Verwaltung e.V. His current work focuses on risk management, public corporate governance and issues relating to municipal debt.

Prof. Dr Berthold Tillmann is a former Lord Mayor of the City of Münster and Honorary Professor at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, specialising in local, regional and financial policy. After studying political science, sociology, psychology and educational science in Münster, he completed his doctorate at the University of Paderborn on the subject of ‘Local political education as an influencing factor for local political commitment’. During his more than 30 years of political practice, Prof Tillmann worked as head of the social affairs department, treasurer and Lord Mayor of Münster. His practical teaching assignments at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Münster, his many years of involvement in various specialist and management committees of the German Association of Cities as well as numerous specialist lectures and projects on local political issues in Germany and abroad are evidence of his commitment to the close link between theory and practice.

Prof Dr Wolfgang Berens has been a senior professor since 1 October 2018 and held the Chair of Business Administration, in particular Controlling, at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster from 1999 to 2018. Prior to this, he taught in various roles at the universities of Münster, Kaiserslautern, Osnabrück, Cologne and Düsseldorf. Since 2001, he has been a co-founder and partner of BMS Consulting GmbH Düsseldorf, a consulting firm specialising in problem-solving concepts in the field of controlling. He co-operates with numerous commercial, industrial and consulting companies within the scope of management training and is active in practice as a consultant, expert, supervisory and advisory board member.

Prof. Dr rer. pol. Dr h.c. Dietrich Budäus holds a degree in business administration and is a professor of business administration specialising in public management (emeritus) at the University of Hamburg. He studied business administration, sociology and political science at the University of Hamburg and completed his habilitation at the University of Oldenburg with a thesis entitled ‘Business management instruments to relieve municipal budgets’. Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Budäus has received several appointments and positions at various universities in Germany and abroad and is a member of relevant scientific associations, expert commissions and advisory boards. He is involved in the implementation and monitoring of numerous public administration reform projects, including universities. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Linz in 2004.
His main areas of work are Effectiveness and efficiency of the public sector - public management, in particular administrative reform in the Federal Republic of Germany in international comparison, reform of public accounting, controlling, budgeting, cost and performance accounting in public administrations, public-private partnerships.

Werner Haßenkamp was President of the Municipal Audit Office of North Rhine-Westphalia until 2017. He studied law at the University of Münster. He then worked in various areas of local government for over 25 years, including 20 years as treasurer in the Borken district alone. In 2009, he moved from his position as district director of the Borken district to the NRW Municipal Audit Office. The GPA NRW is responsible for the supra-local audit of all local authorities and the annual audit of all local authority-owned companies in NRW. In addition, it advises local authorities primarily on issues relating to the organisation and efficiency of administration. Since 2012, it has been tasked with supporting the participating municipalities in the preparation and implementation of budget restructuring plans as part of the Economic Stability Pact Act.

Wolfgang Heuer is an alderman of the City of Münster and heads the Department for Citizen Services, Order, Personnel and Organisation. After studying political science, sociology and European ethnology at the Universities of Marburg and Münster, he worked in various professional positions. Among other things, he worked as an advisor to a member of the German Bundestag and as head of the Rector's Office at the University of Münster, as project manager for university marketing and in the management of the Institute of Political Science. As the ‘cross-sectional head of department’ of a local authority, he is particularly interested in a sustainable response to the issue of resources.

Prof Dr Klaus Schubert has held the Chair of Politics and Policy Analysis at the University of Münster since 2002. Several deputy and research professorships have taken him to Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Tübingen, among other places, but also to neighbouring European countries such as Great Britain and the Czech Republic. His path repeatedly crossed the city of Bochum, where he habilitated in 2000 on the subject of ‘Innovation and Order - Foundations of a Pragmatic Theory of Politics’. In the same year, he accepted a professorship at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. From 2002 to 2007, he was Director of the Institute of Political Science and from 2008 to 2012, he held the position of Vice Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Münster. In addition, Klaus Schubert has been the spokesman of the board of the Graduate School of Politics (GraSP) since 2005 and has been the spokesman of smartNETWORK for four years. The latter characterises dynamic and flexible doctoral training in the humanities and social sciences as well as the structural and content-related networking of doctoral schools and research training groups at the WWU.