Dr. Hans Vorländer studied Law, Political Science and Philosophy at the Universities of Bonn and Geneva. He was a Research Associate and Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.) in 1984/85 and in 1986/87. From 1993 to 2020 he held the Chair for Political Theory and the History of Political Ideas at the Institute of Political Science at TU Dresden. Since 2007 he has been Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism and Democracy, which he founded, and since 2017 Director of the Dresden based Research Center “Mercator Forum on Migration and Democracy”, both at TU Dresden.

Vorländer served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and as Senator of his University. He was Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of the Collaborative Research Center 537 “Institutionalität und Geschichtlichkeit/ Institutionality and Historicity” and Founder and Chairman of the Collaborative Research Center 804 “Transzendenz und Gemeinsinn/Transcendence and Common Sense” at TU Dresden, both funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). He served as one of the Coordinators of his University for the German Federal Excellence Initiative.

Hans Vorländer was Visiting Professor and Directeur d'études at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris and Visiting Professor at the Inter-University Center Dubrovnik, the Universities of Torino, Bologna, Mexico City (UNAM and ITAM), and at La Sapienza, Università di Roma.

He is a member of many national and international Editorial and Advisory Boards. He is Chairman of the German Expert Council on Integration and Migration. Vorländer was President of the German Association of Political Science (2001-2003) and Chairman of the Scientific Council of the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (2001-2005). He is co-editor of the Journal of Political Science. Vorländer has a long record of political consulting and media appearances, both in print and audio-visual media.