Prof. Dr. Daniel Fischer

Prof. Dr. Daniel Fischer holds the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development at Leuphana University Lüneburg, where he is Professor of Sustainability Education and Communication and head of the Sustainability Education Research Group (SERG). He has held the Chair since 2023.

In his research and teaching, he investigates how more sustainable lifestyles and responsible consumption can be promoted through educational and communication interventions. From a pedagogical theory perspective, his focus is on how reflexivity can be enhanced and how individuals and collectives can be empowered to reconfigure their relationships with the consumer societies in which they were born, grew up and were socialised. In recent years, he has explored how teaching and learning formats such as mindfulness practices, storytelling or citizen science approaches can contribute to this goal. His current research includes transformative assessment and evaluation methods as well as participatory teaching and learning formats.

Before joining Leuphana University, he held professorships for Sustainability Education at Arizona State University (ASU) in the US and for Consumer Communication for Sustainability at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands for five years. He completed his doctorate in sustainability sciences with a dissertation on the role of schools in addressing global consumption challenges. Prior to that, he completed a teacher training programme and a master’s degree in “Educational Management and School Development”.