31.03.2026 Julia Schulte-Cloos Receives Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize

DFG honors innovative research on democracy, political behavior, and digital data

Political scientist Prof. Dr Julia Schulte-Cloos, from Marburg University, has won the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and carrying a prize fund of 200,000 euros. 

The award recognizes her outstanding research on the stability and resilience of modern democracies. Using novel digital datasets and study designs, she demonstrates how political identities and voting behavior are shifting in the face of current crises in Europe.

New Dynamics of Political Polarization

At the heart of Schulte-Cloos’s research is the profound transformation of political conflicts and their impact on the democratic stability of modern societies. She investigates how political identities form and why anti-democratic actors and populist movements are increasingly gaining ground.

In her work, she bridges classical political science questions with cutting-edge methods from Computational Social Science. By leveraging AI-driven analysis of digital behavioral data and innovative study designs, she measures the underlying mechanisms of political discontent and radicalization. Her work provides crucial insights into the resilience of democratic institutions and their ability to cope with growing social polarization in the digital age.

Multi-Award-Winning Research

Prof. Dr. Schulte-Cloos serves as a tenure-track professor of Political Science at Marburg University. Her research profile combines comparative politics, democracy and party research, and political behavior with modern computational methods. Her scientific work has received numerous international awards and has been published in renowned journals such as the European Journal of Political Research, Political Behavior, Political Communication, and Perspectives on Politics. Previous honors, such as the ECPR Rising Star Award, highlight her early international recognition.

„ Julia Schulte-Cloos represents a new generation of top-tier political science research. Her work combines methodological innovation with social relevance and makes an important contribution to our understanding of modern democracies. She also engages in current social debates, such as the question of lowering the voting age to 16," comments Prof. Dr. Gert Bange, Vice President for Research at Marburg University.

Political Participation and Polarization

The award emphasizes the importance of data-driven social science research in understanding current democratic challenges. Schulte-Cloos’s work provides critical insights into how political participation, polarization, and the success of anti-democratic actors emerge in digital societies. Her findings provide a key scientific contribution to the wider debate on the future of democratic systems in Europe

About the Prize

The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to outstanding researchers who are in the early stages of their scientific careers. The award is intended to support and encourage recipients who do not yet hold a permanent professorship to continue pursuing their academic paths.

The prize recognizes not only the dissertation but specifically the fact that the researchers have already developed an independent scientific profile and enriched the scientific community with their results, signaling a high potential for future top-level achievements. The 2026 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize ceremony will take place on June 11, 2026, in Berlin.