Irena Kogan Receives Landesforschungspreis 2026

Irena Kogan hat kurze, dunkle Haare und trägt einen roten Blazer.

The professor of Sociology, Societal Comparisons at the University of Mannheim and former Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) has won the Landesforschungspreis Baden-Württemberg 2026 (research award of the Land of Baden-Württemberg 2026).

Professor Irena Kogan has received the most highly endowed research award granted by a Land in the amount of EUR 50,000 for her basic research on educational and career opportunities for immigrants. The award ceremony for the Landesforschungspreis Baden-Württemberg 2026 with science minister Petra Olschowski will take place in Stuttgart on 11 June.

Irena Kogan has held the Chair of Sociology, Societal Comparisons at the School of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim since October 2009. From 2020 to 2023, she was also the Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), where she has been a researcher for many years. Her research focuses on aspects such as social inequality, migration, ethnicity, transitions from school to work, and social stratification analyses. At the MZES, she is heading the European Research Council-funded project “Partnership Formation in the Context of Recent Refugee Migration” (PARFORM), which investigates partnership formation processes in the context of unequal gender distribution and pronounced cultural and social distance. In addition to leading other third-party funded research projects, she is also one of the researchers responsible for the German part of the international long-term research project CILS4EU, examining the development of children with an immigrant background. Moreover, she has recently been appointed to the editorial board of the Cologne Journal of Sociology and Social Psychology (KZfSS).

In 2006, Irena Kogan completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Mannheim focusing on institutional factors influencing the labor market integration of immigrants summa cum laude. Prior to pursuing a doctorate, she studied Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University in Israel as well as Foreign Language Studies and Pedagogics in Kherson, Ukraine.

More information on her chair at the School of Social Sciences can be found here.

Further information on the Landesforschungspreis Baden-Württemberg
The Landesforschungspreis is awarded every two years to honor outstanding scientific achievements in all disciplines. Award winners work in a variety of fields, ranging from biology to philology and finance. It is the most highly endowed research award granted by a Land and awarded to a total of two researchers, one conducting basic research and the other applied research.

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