Prof. Dr. Guido Heineck, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Economics, and Business Administration at the University of Bamberg, opened the event and pointed out during his welcome address the milestones throughout Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert’s academic career, emphasizing the great relevance of her research especially in the light of contemporary events. Following this introduction, it was Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert turn to provide an extensive overview of central questions in the field of educational research from a life-course perspective. In doing so, she initially introduced conceptual thoughts on the principles of the life course and their application to concrete questions and measurements in the context of educational research. Afterwards she illustrated these thoughts by presenting two empirical examples from her own research. With the first example, she elaborated on the question of how transitions from school to vocational training have changed for various educational groups over the last 30 years. The second example highlighted Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert’s strong interest in survey methodology as she presented a study on the impact of competency testing on panel attrition. Finally, she gave an outlook on her future research projects, which again reflected the wide range of her interests.

On January 1, 2015, Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert was appointed as Professor of Sociology with a Focus on Longitudinal Education Research at the University of Bamberg. Simultaneously, she became Head of the Department “Longitudinal Education Research” at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi).