Heiko Pleines is head of the FSO Dept. of Politics and Economics and Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bremen. His current research deals with social policy (most recently with a case study on Kazakhstan) in the context of the University of Bremen’s CRC “Global Dynamics of Social Policy”. He has also been working on energy politics.

He is co-head of the Discuss Data online repository, where he curates the categories on media and on public opinion.