Dr. Barbara Hans appointed as new Professor of Media and Cultural Management

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The Hamburg University of Music and Drama (HfMT) is expanding and strategically developing the Institute for Cultural and Media Management (KMM). The journalist, communication scientist and consultant Dr. Barbara Hans has been appointed as a new full-time professor. Hans is considered one of the most renowned journalists and editorial managers in Germany. She was editor-in-chief of SPIEGEL ONLINE and became editor-in-chief of the merged SPIEGEL editorial team in 2019. Among other things, she established the successful payment model and designed the change process of the editorial offices towards a merged joint editorial team. Medium Magazin named her Editor-in-Chief of the Year in 2017.

"I am very much looking forward to contributing my academic expertise and practical experience to teaching and research and to working with my colleagues to further develop the services offered by the KMM Institute," says Barbara Hans. As a communication and media scientist, she has worked at the Universities of Hamburg and Sussex and held an Academic Fellowship at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York. Her research interests include trust, digitalization, media staging and diversity. She was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation, worked as a research assistant at the University of Hamburg and completed her doctorate with a multidisciplinary thesis on trust in politics and media. Barbara Hans currently works as a moderator and consultant for managers, companies and teams. Since 2006, she has been a volunteer for the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma based at Columbia University, New York; since 2021, she has been the honorary director of the Dart Center Europe, where she focuses in particular on leadership and organizational psychology.

Prof. Dr. Jan Philipp Sprick, President of the HfMT: "For the Hamburg University of Music and Drama, the Institute for Cultural and Media Management is an important element of our strategy to be an artistic university that has a diverse impact in and for society. With the appointment of Barbara Hans, the university has gained a colleague who will provide important impetus both externally and internally."

Prof. Dr. Martin Zierold, Head of the KMM Institute: "Barbara Hans is an ideal appointment for the KMM Institute because she equally represents academically central subject areas for our degree programmes and is also an experienced leader who has impressively demonstrated how organizations can be successfully shaped in times of transformation and crisis. There is currently no more important competence for art, culture and media. As the home of the first degree course in cultural management in Germany, the KMM Institute aims to continue to play a leading role today in order to ensure the relevance and resonance of art and culture for society in the future."

The "Cultural Management" course was established at the HfMT in 1987 - it was the first of its kind in Germany. The Institute for Cultural and Media Management emerged from it in 2000. With around 500 students in attendance and distance learning courses, it is one of the largest institutes for cultural and media management in Europe. The establishment of another full-time professorship at the KMM Institute was also made possible by the generous start-up funding from the Hamburg Zajadacz Foundation, which has been financing an endowed professorship since 2017, which has now been structurally stabilized.
The HfMT offers artistic and academic training in all areas of Music and Drama. With around 1,300 students, it is one of Germany's leading arts universities and, as a research-oriented university, also has the right to award doctorates.