Prof. Dr. Matthias Braun

Chair for Social Ethics

Since winter 2022 Matthias Braun is leading the department of social ethics and ethics of emerging technologies at the University of Bonn.

PI SFB 1483 EmpkinS

Since September 2021, a team of engineers, physicians, ethicists, sports scientists and psychologists is conducting research together as part of a collaborative research center funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

ERC Grantee

Matthias Braun has been awarded with an ERC Starting Grant (2023-2028)

Short Bio

2016: PhD (summa cum laude)
2019: Research Fellow at the University of Bergen
Since 2021: Head of a junior research group at the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
2021: Research Fellow at the University of Maastricht,
Since 2021: Principal Investigator SFB 1483 (EmpkinS)
Since winter semester 2022/23: Full professor for social ethics at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University Bonn
2023 ERC Starting Grant SIMTWIN
2023 Falling Walls Award "Social Science and Humanities"
Since 2024 Research Associate at the University of Oxford, The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Research Focus

Ethics of artificial intelligence
Ethics of emerging technologies (in particular: synthetic biology, genome editing, stem cell research)
Political ethics (democracy, rule of law, civil society)
Recognition and vulnerability as topics of (theological) ethics
Solidarity and Justice
Ethics of psychological deviance

Publications

Get an overview of Matthias Braun's current publications.

Get to know Matthias Braun

Matthias Braun heads the Department of (Social) Ethics and is a research associate at the University of Oxford.

After studying biology and Protestant theology, he initially worked as a research assistant at Philipps University of Marburg, conducted research as part of the MaxSynBio excellence project jointly funded by the Max Planck Society and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and was a Research Fellow at the University of Bergen, Maastricht University and at the University of Oxford. Until September 2022, he led the junior research group "Ethics and Governance of New Technologies" at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. In his doctoral thesis, Matthias Braun dealt with social-anthropological and theological-ethical issues in dealing with psychological deviance. In this work, he developed a model of intersubjective recognition that simultaneously takes into account the fundamental vulnerability of human beings and asks for concrete possibilities to shape existing structures and ways of existence. His work has received several awards (DFG, Staedtler Foundation) and has been published by Mohr-Siebeck.

Matthias Braun's research addresses questions of political ethics (the relationship between democracy, civil society and the rule of law) as well as the ethical and governance challenges of new technologies (in particular: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Genome Editing). Matthias Braun has published in high-impact scientific journals and has been invited to give numerous national and international lectures and talks. In 2023 he has been awarded with an ERC Starting Grant and a Falling Walls Awards (Social Science and Humanities) He is further Principal Investigator in the Collaborative Research Center 1483 "EmpkinS", funded by the German Research Foundation, as well as PI in the Horizion Europe Project GEMINI. He further serves as a senator at the university of Bonn as well as in several consortia and think tanks.