Prof. Dr. Bernd Marin, born in Vienna in 1948, is Executive Director of the European Centre since 1988. From 1984 to 1988 he was Professor of Comparative Political and Social Research at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, where he was also Head of the Department of Political and Social Sciences (1986 - 1987).

After studies of social sciences at the University of Vienna and a post-graduate training at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, he became Research Fellow and later Deputy Director of the Institute for Conflict Research in Vienna from 1975 to 1984. In this period, he also completed his Habilitation in Linz, post-doctoral research at Harvard University, and a visiting professorship and and several visiting lectures across Europe. Since 1972 he taught sociology, political science, government and socio-economics in various Austrian universities (Vienna, WU Vienna, Linz, Innsbruck). Later, Prof. Marin lectured in various European, American and Japanese research institutions and universities, e.g. at the universities of Harvard, Columbia, New York University (NYU), New School of Social Research, New York, City University of New York (CUNY), Cornell, Berkeley, Budapest, Moscow, Roskilde, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, Jerusalem and Tokyo and was visiting professor in Zurich, Warsaw, Florence, Vienna and Innsbruck. He also worked and lectured in several extra-university research centers, among others at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, at the Wissenschaftszentrum fuer Sozialforschung, Berlin and at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (C.S.O. / CNRS.), Paris.

Since 1979 Prof. Marin is Founding Editor of the Journal fuer Sozialforschung. He has served as a consultant to Austrian, international and intergovernmental organizations, to business firms and management consultants, to non-governmental and interest organizations such as chambers of commerce and trade unions, as well as to governments. He was responsible for the scientific report ('Welfare in a Civil Society') to the All-European Conference of Ministers Responsible for Social Affairs in Bratislava in 1993 and was involved in the preparation and follow-up activities of the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen 1995. He is also a well-seeked public speaker and contributor to newspapers and magazines, radio, video and TV, apart from being an author of social science publications in many languages and of over a dozen book publications, including

Can Advanced Welfare Societies Survive? (in prep.), Managing AIDS: Comparative European Experiences (in prep. with Patrick Kenis co-ed. 1996), Welfare in a Civil Society (co-author), 1993; Policy Networks (ed.with R. Mayntz), 1991; Generalized Political Exchange (ed.), 1990, Governance and Generalized Exchange (ed.), 1990; Verfall und Erneuerung im Bauwesen (ed.), 1987; Unternehmerorganisationen im Verbaendestaat, Bd. I, 1986; Antisemitismus in OEsterreich (with John Bunzl), 1983; Die Paritaetische Kommission. Aufgeklaerter Technokorporatismus in OEsterreich, 1982; Wachstumskrisen in OEsterreich? Bd. I: Grundlagen (with M. Wagner), 1979, Bd. II: Szenarios (ed.), 1979; Politische Organisation sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschungsarbeit, 1978.