Value research and, in particular the World Values Survey and Inglehart’s and Welzel’s Human Development Theory were one of my academic interests since early on in my undergraduate studies of Integrated Social Sciences at Jacobs University Bremen. I had worked on this topic with colleagues and would later write my BA thesis on the topic.
This is why I gladly accepted when Franziska Deutsch, project manager for the german analysis of the latest, now 5th wave of the World Values Survey asked me during the summer break of 2006 whether I wanted to join the German Research Council-funded project as a junior project assistant, lead by principal investigator and co-director of the World Values Survey, my teacher and academic advisor Prof. Dr. Chris Welzel. I was excited about this opportunity to get involved in current research, learn from the other team members, and, together with them, get my hands on fresh-out-of-the-field data, that had never been analyzed before.
