Working at HM Professorships HM OnBoard New Appointees Portraits

New & Appointed

Name: Jana Heinz

Professor of: Methods of Empirical Social Research

I’m from: I’m from Ilmenau in Thuringia; I’ve been living in Bavaria since 2003 and in Munich since 2011.

Previously, I worked as: a sociologist at the Technical University of Munich; as Project Manager for research projects that I had designed and secured funding for at the German Youth Institute in Munich; and on the executive committee of a Munich-based research association.

My area of expertise in a word ...

(Graphics: HM Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences )

... and my motivation for teaching there:

Mixed-methods approaches. In order to help solve socially relevant problems in a digital society, we need to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders in the professional world, civil society and academia, as well as tailored and flexible methods to research and understand these transformational processes and feed the findings back into practice.

Why choose HM?

In my department, I am part of an innovative and friendly team of colleagues. As I have been living in Munich since 2011, I do not have to do without my networks in academia, civil society and professional practice. As a professor at the HM, I am able to teach, learn and conduct research with students in a way that is both theory-based and practice-oriented.

My highlight of the year

The new “Co-Transform Freising” project will get underway in November 2023, in which I will have the opportunity to work alongside colleagues from academia, practitioners and students from Hochschule München to advise school communities on their self-initiated school transformation processes in the digital society.

My leisure tip

(Graphics: HM Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences )

I can recommend the following places in Munich and Pasing: lunch at the Pasinger and/or Munich Viktualienmarkt, reading in the Rosengarten by the Isar, the new Volkstheater on Tumblingerstraße, watching surfers on the Eisbach wave, and having a coffee at the Goldene Bar in the Haus der Kunst; on Sundays, viewing art for 1 euro at the Munich Pinakotheken.

The ‘New & Appointed’ series introduces newly appointed Professors at the HM and provides insights into their backgrounds, areas of expertise and motivations. Each profile concludes with a personal leisure tip for the HM community.