Prof. Dr. Peter J. Brenner (*1953) studied Philosophy, German Philology, Education and Comparative Literature at the University of Bonn. After his doctorate in Bonn in 1979, he was a research assistant, after his habilitation Privatdozent at the University of Regensburg and Heisenberg scholarship holder at the University of Bayreuth. From 1991 to 2009 he was professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cologne. In 2009, he moved to the Technical University of Munich, first as Founding Director of the TUM School of Education and then as Academic Director at the Carl von Linde Academy of the TUM. He has held visiting professorships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Leopold Franzens-University Innsbruck.

In 2016 he was elected to Class I: Humanities of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2017 to the Academic Council of the Humboldt-Gesellschaft e.V.

Theory…

Prof. Brenner has dealt with the theory and history of educational institutions in numerous books and a lot of academic essays and journalistic articles in the press, radio and television. Particularly worthy of mention are his books “Schule in Deutschland” (2006), “Wie Schule funktioniert” (2009) and “Kultur als Wissenschaft. Vor Bologna, nach Bologna” (extended new edition 2011), “Bildungsgerechtigkeit” (2014).

In addition, he has given countless lectures on educational politics and educational science topics.

… and practice

Prof. Brenner worked at the universities of Regensburg, Bayreuth and Cologne for a total of more than 30 years in teacher training. In addition, he has extensive experience with the management of educational institutions. This includes

• the establishment of a quality management and evaluation system at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Cologne since 2001 and the implementation of comprehensive teaching evaluations
• the activity as founding director of the Faculty of Teacher Education “TUM.School of Education” at the Technical UniversityMunich 2009/10
• the development of innovative further training programmes (“Service Learning”) at the Carl von Linde Academy of the TUM
• cooperation with vocational schools within the framework of the TUM project ConnecTUM developed by him
• the evaluation of several Bavarian Gymnasien as a member of external evaluation teams of the Bavarian State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research
• advising foreign universities and university institutes on the establishment or reorganisation of such institutions
• multiple participation as an expert in hearings and commissions of enquiry of the state parliaments in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse

Prof Brenner can also look back on two decades of cooperation with various teacher associations. For many years he was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Association of German Secondary School Teachers („Verband deutscher Realschullehrer“) and the German Philological Association („Deutscher Philologenverband“)

From 2015 to 2018, he was the Director of the TUM Archives and the President’s Representative for the overall management of the extensive festivities to mark the 150th anniversary of the Technical University Munich in 2018.